These are sample chapters. In the full novel, the Ivan chapter comes first, but you can read these in any order.
Milos
. . . He can no longer write about his homeland: that well has been plumbed, scraped, and scoured, left as dry as the calloused skin on his elbows. Milos has long been embraced in the Western world as a dissident author who interweaves political commentary on Hungarian communism—its daily oppressions and degradations—among stories of love and relationships. He reveals the absurdity of the mundane perversities of the regime, contrasted against the depth of its tragedy for people’s everyday lives—the fear, the secrecy, the doubts it creates about everything, including love. But much of this has been fakery. . . . [Read the full chapter]
Ivan
. . . After years of darkness in which he dreamt of light, his tired eyes can no longer stand brightness. The hunched man sits in silence, staring at the screen that holds his words, words that represent the story of his life—his interrupted life. . . . [Read the full chapter]
Juliska
After all these years, Milos and Juliska are beyond artifice. Through the years, they have forged a code. Created silently, by implicit agreement, constituted by symbolism and shorthand, it can invest a quick glance or a brief eye movement with emphatic meaning. So she knows there will be no misunderstandings between them. But that remnant familiarity will also prevent any room for sympathetic misunderstanding or generous reinterpretation, and the breathing space that could allow them at this time of friction. . . . [Read the full chapter]