Title: The End of a Family Story
Author: Peter Nadas, trans Imre Goldstein
Publisher: Farrar, Strous & Giroux, 1998 (1st American Edition)
ISBN: 0374148325
Condition: Hardcover, with dust jacket. Like new.

Myth, history, and the power of personal observation are beautifully synthesized in this inspired, radiantly beautiful novel from the author of A Book of Memories.

It is the 1950s, in Hungary, when Stalinist repression has reduced the populace to silence and deception. The narrator, a young boy, lives alone with his grandparents. His rebellious, talkative grandfather, refusing to submit to the implacable realities, flees to his memories of the past, in which he believes he can still find redemption, and for his grandson, he weaves a fantastic tapestry of stories of family sagas. His myths and legends depict the luxuriant history of a family with both Christian and Jewish roots, and of a people who, having denied the Messiah, must legitimate their faith and expiate their sins over thousands of years. And, as he talks, he teaches the boy that, however wild and wondrous stories may seem, everysentence in them in "a unit of truth".