The End of a Family Story Author:Peter Nadas From the author of A Book of Memories comes a dazzling novel set in 1950s Hungary that celebrates the imagination as an indispensable tool for survival. — The narrator of The End of a Family Story is a young boy who lives alone with his grandparents. His rebellious, talkative grandfather escapes the present by fleeing to his memorie... more »s of the past, weaving for his grandson a fantastic tapestry of stories both of family sagas and of biblical, Talmudic, and historical characters. Simultaneously, the storyteller and the boy realize that the boy's father, a government official, has betrayed the family and is now being named a traitor by the authorities. Liberated into sincerity and freedom by his grandfather's stories, the boy gives dark and passionate testimony to the horrors of the adult world.
Inviting comparisons with the work of Isaac Babel, Salman Rushdie, and Italo Calvino, The End of a Family Story further confirms Ndas as one of contemporary Europe's preeminent novelists.
"Drifts from dream to memory and memory to dream . . . it is probably this very mysteriousness that makes the novel so haunting, and its celebration of the pandemonium of human experience so compelling."--The Boston Globe
"For fans of Ndas' exquisite, serpentine language, this is a welcome addition to his oeuvre." --Time Out New York« less