First published 2002
John Price arrives in Budapest one spring day searching for his elusive brother. The year is 1990-something, and the Hungarian capital has just opened to the West. John joins four other American expats who came seeking financial success, romance, and spiritual discovery in this exotic new frontier. They suspect their counterparts in Prague have found something better, but Budapest becomes their testing ground. John tries to lose himself in the city's nightclub scene and begins a romance with a mysterious young diplomat. He befriends an elderly cocktail pianist and spends time with a young man fixated on nostalgia. But uncomfortable questions plague him. What does career anxiety mean when the man across from you survived torture under two regimes? How does his brief, ordinary life measure against those who actually resisted and died? John came looking for his brother but finds himself drawn into something larger and unnamed, stories that dwarf his own concerns in a city still marked by bullet holes from war and crushed rebellion.
Genres: fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, adventure, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Budapest, Hungary, Prague
Period: 1990s
384 pages · Hardcover · Random House
Content warnings: anxiety, depression, torture