The Book of Fathers: A Novel

Miklos Vamos

Okt 2009 · Other Press, LLC

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When in 1705 Kornell Csillag's grandfather returns destitute to his native Hungary from exile, he happens across a gold fob-watch gleaming in the mud. The shipwrecked fortunes of the Csillag family suddenly take a new and marvelous turn. The golden watch brings an unexpected gift to the future generations of firstborn sons: clairvoyance. Passed down from father to son, this gift offers the ability to look into the future or back into history–for some it is considered a blessing, for others a curse. No matter the outcome, each generation records its astonishing, vivid, and revelatory visions into a battered journal that becomes known as The Book of Fathers. For three hundred years the Csillag family line meanders unbroken across Hungary's rivers and vineyards, through a land overrun by wolves and bandits, scarred by plague and massacre, and brutalized by despots. Impetuous, tenderhearted, and shrewd, the Csillags give birth to scholars and gamblers, artists and entrepreneurs. Led astray by unruly passions, they marry frigid French noblewomen and thieving alehouse whores. They change their name and their religion, and change them back. They wander from home but always return, and through it all The Book of Fathers bears witness to holocaust and wedding feast alike.

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Miklós Vámos

Miklós Vámos is one of the most respected and widely read writers in his native Hungary. He is the author of twenty-eight books, eleven of them novels. He has taught at Yale University on a Fulbright fellowship, served as The Nation’s Eastern Europe correspondent, and was the host of a popular cultural TV talk show in Hungary. Today he is a correspondent for the Washington Post online. He is the father of three children, including a daughter who lives in London and five-year-old twin boys in Budapest.