Skylark

It is 1900, give or take a few years. The Vajkays--call them Mother and Father--live in S rszeg, a dead-end burg in the provincial heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Father retired some years ago to devote his days to genealogical research and quaint questions of heraldry. Mother keeps house. Both are utterly enthralled with their daughter, Skylark. Unintelligent, unimaginative, unattractive, and unmarried, Skylark cooks and sews for her parents and anchors the unremitting tedium of their lives.

Now Skylark is going away, for one week only, it's true, but a week that yawns endlessly for her parents. What will they do? Before they know it, they are eating at restaurants, reconnecting with old friends, attending the theater. And this is just a prelude to Father's night out at the Panther Club, about which the less said the better. Drunk, in the light of dawn Father surprises himself and Mother with his true, buried, unspeakable feelings about Skylark.

Then, Skylark is back. Is there a world beyond the daily grind and life's creeping disappointments? Kosztol nyi's crystalline prose, perfect comic timing, and profound human sympathy conjure up a tantalizing beauty that lies on the far side of the irredeemably ordinary. To that extent, Skylark is nothing less than a magical book.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Published: 03/02/2010
ISBN: 9781590173398
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.53lbs
Size: 8.06h x 5.02w x 0.52d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 11/02/2009 pg. 32
Library Journal 12/15/2009 pg. 97
New York Review of Books 04/08/2010 pg. 62