Customer Reviews

Plum Brandy: Croatian Journeys (Terra Incognita Series, 7)

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I laughed out loud at the wry and tender humour Novakovich brings to these intimate essays. Several of these essays belong alongside David Sedaris' writing about his misadventures in France--insightful, intimate, and heartbreakingly funny observations on our human predicament. Picking up this book is so much like sitting in a Balkan cafe with a long-lost friend telling exquiste funny / sad stories that leave you hanging on every word that later you swear you can smell the espresso, brandy and smoke. Reccomended!

This is a collection of stories from an award-winning author who straddles two very different worlds. Born in Croatia when it was still part of Yugoslavia, he emigrated to the United States at age 20. He has traveled back to Croatia many times and spent some time there during the brake up of Yugoslavia. As both a native Croat and an American he was able to view the turbulent times of the 90s with the detachment of an outsider looking in and the insight of a native son. This book however is not about the war in former Yugoslavia but a collection of personal experiences that took place at that time.

In the following example he manages to tell us, in a personal way, something about the Serb rebellion in the Krajina region of Croatia. In the Guns of August essay, he writes: I took a train ride to Rijeka  or rather I wanted to. The train was cancelled: the line passed along the Krajina region. I took the bus, and it went right to the Slovenian border. Krajina had squeezed the rest of Croatia all the way to Slovenia at one point.

In another essay, he describes in lyrical prose moments of his childhood in a Croatian village: My sweating father interrupted carving wood and gave me leafy red bank notes to buy loaves. Yeasty smells drew the townspeople who were still fresh from rising in a cold dawn to the old bakery with its uneven walls and swelling mortar. Beyond the threshold, I saw naked and skinless white loaves slide into the metal oven above the random licks of flames. Soon a pale man sprinkled water from a crimson cup, glazing the emerging an tanning bread skins into polished crusts.

Josip Novakovich is an extremely gifted writer who offered me, the reader, genuine pleasure out of the simple act of reading. I recommend this book highly because I am certain it will have the same effect on you.

I agree with the prior reviews re: "Plum Brandy." For me, the final chapter on Josip searching for his grandmother's grave in Cleveland is worth the price on its own. Reminded me of my search (less complicated!) for the grave of my Slovenian great-aunt Marija in Saint Louis. The effect was very sentimental and uniquely personal. The memories of time spent and years since her death race through the mind. Glad to see another example of good relations between Slovenes and Croats. We are much more culturally and politically similar than different.

I should have written this review sooner than now. I read this book more than a year ago but found it a thoughtful series of journeys both in the country, and in the mind of Novakovich. This was the third book I read by this Croat immigrant professor, who came to the U.S in the 1970's prior to the Balkan War. I've spent quite a bit of personal time in various parts of Croatia and he captures an essence of a period of time from his childhood memories and current time frames. Each story provides the reader with an excellent snapshot of the country and mindsets during the past 40 years. Well worth reading.

I am half Croatian, and since 2006 have been to "the old country" twice, searching out more information about my great grandparents, finding my relatives, bonding (beautifully!) with them, immersing myself in their culture. This book is a wonderful, wonderful way to see things through the author's eyes, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and have read it twice (both times on the plane on the way to Croatia!)

I especially enjoy reading about the people he knew in Cleveland, as half of my relatives moved to Cleveland after clearing Ellis Island (the other half went to Welland, Ontario, Canada which has a large Croatian population)

also love the title. Croatians make some fine, fine brandy.... :-)