No Saints or Angels
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
A novel of one desperate woman’s hopes and desires set in contemporary Prague from “a literary gem who is too little appreciated in the West” (The Boston Globe).
Divorced, approaching fifty, and mother to a rebellious fifteen-year-old, Kristyna is beginning to feel the strain of her bleak existence—until she finds a new sense of joy when she begins a love affair with a man fifteen years her junior
But her escape into romance is far from complete. She worries about her daughter Jana, who has been cutting school, and may be using heroin—the latest plague on the city. And Kristyna’s mother has forced her to accept the personal papers of her dead father, a tyrant whose Stalinist ideals she despised. At a crossroads in her life, she must find a way to put the past behind her and deal with the challenges of the present in a Czechoslovakia that is still trying to overcome years of communist oppression.
In this Washington Post Best Book of 2001, Klima “unflinchingly presents the problems facing modern Prague and civilization in general . . . [and] fills it with mercy” (San Francisco Chronicle).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kl ma, internationally acclaimed author of a substantial body of work (Love and Garbage; Lovers for a Day; etc.), deconstructs a contemporary Czech family in his latest effort. Krist na, a divorced mother in her 40s, works as a dentist in Prague. Burdened with responsibilities, she is the sole caregiver for her aging, widowed mother; her terminally ill ex-husband; and her 15-year-old daughter, Jana, who may or may not be using hard drugs. Lonely and starved for affection, Krist na begins dating Jan, a former student of her ex-husband and her junior by 15 years. While she tries to use the romance and morning glasses of wine to erase mounting concerns, Krist na is unable to overcome her own unsentimental perceptions. "I'm no Isadora Duncan," she reflects, thinking of the famous dancer and her much younger paramour, the Russian poet Yesenin. "I'm not famous, I'm simply as old as she was and know how to fix people's teeth. My lover is no poet and I'm sure he won't kill himself; he enjoys life and enjoys playing games." While most of the story is told through Krist na's eyes, Kl ma periodically shifts the narrative to Jana's and Jan's point of view, channeling common incidents through the eyes of three different generations. Although philosophical musings weigh heavily on the action on occasion, this compelling, bleak story is worthy of Kl ma's growing acclaim.
