Lázár
A Novel
-
-
4.2 • 39 Ratings
-
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
“Lázár is an exquisite and masterly pronouncement that a gifted young writer walks among us.” —Patti Smith
“Virtuosic...riveting...audacious.” —The New York Times
An “astonishing…disturbingly dreamlike” (Daniel Kehlmann, The Director) debut, inspired by the author’s own family story—a gothic, intergenerational family saga capturing the rise and fall of an aristocratic Hungarian family against the backdrop of the two world wars.
At the turn of the 20th century, the Lázárs welcome their newest member in their rural summer estate, surrounded by a menacingly dark, enchanting forest. Lajos von Lázár is a baby boy with translucent skin and light-blue eyes who looks nothing like the rest of his family. Sándor, the imposing patriarch, is ashamed of his son’s peculiarity. Ilona finds her baby brother quite ugly. Mária is terrified that her son’s uncanny resemblance to the stagehand who died a couple weeks earlier might spell disaster. While Imre, Sándor’s brother whose otherworldly foresight is often confused for insanity, is struck by visions of a great catastrophe.
Lajos’s birth is emblematic of the many secrets, affairs, and peculiar otherworldly happenings that plague the Lázárs. As the decades go by, they will continue to fall prey to their desires, leading grand lives, and experiencing even greater tragedies as they’re swept by the tides of war and revolution that befall their country. But time and again, in the lighter years, extraordinary love and hope shine through.
Masterfully written and deeply haunting, Lázár is a magisterial novel that presents the sweeping history of a nation through the lives of one extraordinary family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An aristocratic Hungarian family copes with cascading trauma over three generations and two world wars in the extraordinary English-language debut from Swiss writer Biedermann. The gothic-tinged story begins at the turn of the 20th century, with the birth of Lajos von Lázár. Lajos's mother, Maria, was impregnated by the family's horse groom, Pál, a fact she keeps secret from her husband, Sándor, a baron who, along with Lajos's six-year-old sister, Ilona, is repulsed by Lajos's "translucent" skin, which reveals his internal organs. Pál dies in an accident shortly after Lajos is born, and Maria slips into a deep depression and dies by suicide when Lajos and Ilona are in their teens. Sándor sends the children to a Catholic boarding school on the eve of WWI, where Lajos, a sensitive and impressionable child, is sexually assaulted by another boy. After the war, Lajos marries and inherits Sándor's title and land after he dies from falling during a drunken stupor. The couple's two children come of age on the eve of WWII, which brings on waves of upheaval and loss during German occupation followed by Hungary's turn to communism after the war. Biedermann artfully weaves surreal images and dramatic irony into the family tragedy, as when preteen Lajos fantasizes about escaping his life by sailing on the Titanic, only to feel "as if he himself had drowned" when he hears that it sank. This is a marvel.
Customer Reviews
amazing
couldn’t put it down - brilliant talented writer