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An Exclusive Love : A Memoir
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Description
One Sunday morning in October, Istvan and his wife Vera start their day as usual. They tidy their house; Vera makes a festive cake to put in the freezer and cuts fresh roses for a vase in the living room. That evening, after nearly fifty years of marriage, they lie down in their bed and take their own lives. Having survived the tumult of twentieth-century Europe and after raising a family together, they could not accept the words 'until death do us part'. While sifting through the fragments of the family history in an attempt to understand this glamorous and enigmatic couple, their granddaughter Johanna Adorjan imagines their final day. Amid the family stories and portraits by friends, she dares to give voice to their never-mentioned experiences in the Holocaust and their escape from Hungary during the uprising of 1956.show more
Product details
- Paperback | 192 pages
- 129.54 x 195.58 x 15.24mm | 113.4g
- 02 Feb 2012
- Vintage Publishing
- VINTAGE
- London, United Kingdom
- English
- 0099552671
- 9780099552673
- 450,196
About Johanna Adorján
Johanna Adorjan is editor of the culture section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. This is her first book.show more
Review quote
"Wonderful, extraordinary" -- Judith Kerr "A profoundly moving story about love, loss, memory and identity" -- Tina Jackson Metro "A moving portrait of a marriage and an uneasy sense of life's banalities as well as its profundities" -- Simon Humphreys Mail on Sunday "I was very much moved by An Exclusive Love... Johanna Adorjan writes with beautiful precision and suppleness... A truly memorable book" -- Diana Athill "Beautifully written... ...the precision of the detail and the nuance of the writing somehow make the narrative resonate" -- Piers Plowright Tabletshow more
Review Text
"Wonderful, extraordinary"show more
Back cover copy
On a Sunday morning in October, István and Vera start their day as usual. They tidy their house; Vera makes a festive cake to put in the freezer and cuts fresh roses for a vase in the living room. That evening, after nearly fifty years of marriage, they lie down in their bed and take their own lives. Having survived the tumult of twentieth-century Europe and after raising a family together, they would not accept the words 'until death do us part'.
While sifting through the fragments of family history in an attempt to understand this glamorous and enigmatic couple, their granddaughter, Johanna Adorján, imagines their final day. Amid the family stories and portraits by friends, she dares to give voice to their never-mentioned experiences in the Holocaust and their escape from Hungary during the uprising of 1956.
'I was very much moved by An Exclusive Love... Johanna Adorján writes with beautiful precision and suppleness. It's a truly memorable book' Diana Athill
'A profoundly moving story and love, loss, memory and identity' Metro
'Spare, beautiful' New York Timesshow more
