Romanian Notebook
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A diaristic exploration of procrastination, pregnancy, and art
The day before Cyrus Console and his pregnant wife leave for a monthlong visit to Romania, they receive troubling news—the fetus she’s carrying is at elevated risk for Down syndrome. As the trip unfolds, his worry spirals into broader meditations on parenthood, language, addiction, love, marriage, and the passage and management of time. In and among the cities of Roman, Iasi, and Bucharest, Console chronicles his loving but comically awkward interactions with friends and family, taking place as they do in a language and culture unfamiliar to him.
The resulting travel diary moves beyond daily life to delve into the enigmas of art, suffering, creativity, and family. Mixing memory with acute observations on everything from chess and stray dogs to heartbreak and dreamscape, Romanian Notebook turns the anxiety and rumination of the expectant parent into a deeper way of thinking about the human condition.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Console fills his notebook which he keeps over the month that he and his wife are visiting her family in Romania with disconnected musings on the human condition, chess, art, and smoking pot (his constant refrain is "maybe I quit smoking pot for nothing"). He opens the notebook with reflections on the jarring news that the fetus that his wife Paula is carrying has an elevated risk of Down 's syndrome. Writing in the notebook gives Console some sense of identity and keeps him occupied during his days in Romania, where he otherwise seems quite bored. The notebook gives the appearance that he's working, and for the first time he feels like a real writer. Late in his travels, he resolves to be "easygoing and pleasant," but by then his apathetic tone has already so deeply colored his life and writing that readers won't believe him. Even as he admits that his "self-pity and frustration" are too much for him, they become monotonous for the reader.
