First published 1993
Gyuri and his teammate dribble through the wreckage of postwar Hungary as members of a traveling basketball team. The year is 1944, and their country has become what Hungarians call the worst place imaginable: under the frog's ass down a coal mine. While political upheaval tears through Eastern Europe, these young men focus on simpler pursuits. They chase women between games and dodge anything resembling real work. Their basketball team becomes both refuge and vehicle as they move through a landscape transformed by communist rule. From 1944 through the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Gyuri witnesses his world reshape itself repeatedly. The team travels from town to town, playing games that matter far less than the game of survival they play daily. Fischer captures their irreverent humor in the face of historical trauma, showing how ordinary people persist through extraordinary times. This is the story of two friends who discover that sometimes the only way to survive history is to keep moving, keep playing, and keep laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, adventure, sports
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Hungary, Eastern Europe
Period: 1944, 1956
Paperback · Polygon