Awards

• Short-listed for Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2006
• Shortlisted for Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2006.

Overview

In the Polish city of Gdansk, our narrator Pawel tells of the driving lessons he took in the early 1990s, shortly after the end of communism. As he struggled with the tiny Fiat s gearbox, causing chaos while stalled at a crossroads, Pawel entertained his instructor the lovely Miss Ciwle with stories of his grandparents and parents lives. Through these tender stories we hear of one family s obsession with classic cars in particular Mercedes-Benz the outings, the races, the crashes and the inevitable repairs. Based on fact and illustrated with personal photographs, these tales contrast the golden era of Poland s pre-war independence with the dismal communist years, and with the uncertain new chapter in the country s history that had only just begun when Pawel was learning to drive. With elegant brilliance, Huelle creates a touching portrait of three generations amid life-changing historical events.

Full Product Details

9781852428693

Table of Contents

Reviews

Droll, offbeat, both touching and farcical * Independent * Huelle writes in such an engaging, chatty style that you hardly notice the fraught circumstances underlying every tale * Guardian * Cultish, electrifying memoir * Independent on Sunday * Quirky, thoughtful and often poetic, it opens a subjective and fascinating window on to the recent past * The Times * An exhilarating, liberating, brief and delightful novel with a story at every turning... Antonia Lloyd-Jones's translation sustains the mischief and verve of the original... Huelle's wit and his subtle gift for measuring absurdity stand comparison with Hrabal or any of the other great central European ironists -- Marek Kohn * New Statesman * Highly recommended. It's truly wonderful what this writer from Gdansk has managed to fit into such a tiny car * Focus * Strictly enclosed by cars and roads, this city-road-movie explores the history of a whole family and era. Wonderful. As Brecht said, the simplest things are the most difficult to create * Bookmarket * Beautifully packaged little paperback...the narration is full of pathos and has clearly been translated into English with lots of TLC * Daily Telegraph * Colourful setting and trenchant social commentary * Kirkus Reviews * Playful, bittersweet, juggling irony with regret * Independent * Huelle has a light touch, weaving his stories about French and German cars in pre-war Poland with adventures in post-Soviet traffic so artfully that you do not see where his is taking you until its too late to turn back -- Maureen Freely, Books of the Year 2005 * Independent on Sunday * Like Dorota Maslowska's White And Red, this is a fine cut of Polish fiction... A quietly pretty meditation on a country taking baby steps * Uncut * A charming little novel from one of Poland's leading authors * Metro * Enchanting and highly readable * Buzz * An unusual and fascinating novel... In this relatively brief, superbly crafted discourse the author manages to convey the nature of the privations suffered by a whole beleagured, but resilient, nation in an accessible and thought-provoking manner. I give this inspirational novel top marks * New Books Mag * Wonderfully droll -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent *

Playful postmodernism Central European-style-entertainment for a decidedly select demographic: automobile aficionados desperate for the inside skinny on Poland's recent past. Pawel knows what he likes: talking and driving, driving and talking. And that's about it for the feckless narrator of this brief ramble of a tale. Namesake of rising literary light and former Solidarity press officer Huelle (Moving House Stories, 1995, etc.), Pawel is a motor-mouth Mercedes maniac fixated on how that spiffy car factors in his family's legend. Himself a downscale prole in the early '90s, he's a student driver tooling around Gdansk in a tiny Fiat. In the midst of learning turn-signaling and parallel parking, he reminisces relentlessly about his dad and granddad. Talking the ear off his driving instructor, Miss Ciwle, a tomboy hottie, he then chronicles their conversations to send to his idol, Czech surrealist short-story writer Bohumil Hrabal. His yarns are decent-enough accounts of everyday people caught in the web of history-his grandfather weathering mustard-gas attacks as a gunner in the Royal Imperial Austro-Hungarian Army, his engineer father finding solace by tinkering with a decrepit Mercedes during the grim height of the hammer-and-sickle years. What's better are his off-the-cuff chats with Miss Ciwle's colleague, a martinet Pawel nicknames Instructor Uglymug. Wheeling through crosstown traffic, he confides in Uglymug comically dreary stories of his time in military service, where Major Bushy-Tache educated us about the disastrous effects of long hair on national security, Lieutenant Gewgaw responded to a nuclear attack, and Colonel Pitchfork cast light on the imponderabilia of Lenin's and Brezhnev's doctrines. Colorful setting and trenchant social commentary, but a cul-de-sac plot. (Kirkus Reviews)

'Pawel Huelle is one of the most well known Polish writers. In this new book his writing is at least as well oiled as a Mercedes-Benz 170 ought to be, full of stories and reads like a song' TAZ; 'Strictly enclosed by cars and roads, this city-road-movie explores the history of a whole family and era. Wonderful. As Brecht said, the simplest things are the most difficult to create' Bookmarket; 'Highly recommended. It's truly wonderful what this writer from Gdansk has managed to fit into such a tiny car' Focus

Author Information

Pawel Huelle (born 1957) is a novelist, playwright and newspaper columnist who has lived most of his life in Gdansk, which often features as the setting for his work. After graduating in Polish studies from Gdansk University in the early 1980s he worked as a press officer for the Solidarity trade union. He was also a university lecturer in philosophy and later head of Gdansk s local television channel before becoming a fulltime writer. His acclaimed first novel Who Was David Weiser? was translated into 17 languages.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available