Romania's most famous literary ex-patriate traces the story of his family's escape from communism, his marriage to the Jewish daughter of survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and his and his wife's eventual return to their homelands."
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
In this stirring memoir, exiled author Popescu (Almost Adam, LJ 5/15/96), who directed the film Death of an Angel, richly details his life in Romania, his defection to America, and his journey back to his homeland after the Romanian revolution. Popescu returns to Eastern Europe with his American wife, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, to rediscover his past in order for him to understand better his life and destiny as a writer and for his wife to understand what her parents suffered. A popular young author in his homeland, Popescu relates how the government and Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu himself reacted to his work and how he struggled to live freely. He also craftily blends his story with his wife's to create powerful images of the importance of family. A remarkable and fascinating book; highly recommended.
-?Jill Jaracz, Chicago
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
-?Jill Jaracz, Chicago
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
An ‚migr‚'s account of his return to post-Communist Romania exudes his own and his native land's irrepressible personality. Despite achieving personal and professional success in America after defecting from Romania, novelist and screenwriter Popescu (Amazon Beaming, 1991) continued to be plagued by his past, his defection, and a sense of having betrayed his Romanian readers. More private ghosts include his late twin brother, stricken by polio as a teenager; his writer-father, who walked out on the family after the brother's death; and a selfish mother who dictated the terms of her remaining son's life. With Ceauescu's downfall, Popescu made the fraught decision to travel to Romania as a journalist. The trip proved to be an emotional roller coaster, plunging both Popescu and his wife, Iris, into moments of dread, joy, despair, and reconciliation. From its opening line, ``Listen to me. Listen to me,'' the reader is plunged into Popescu's urgent and energetic confessional style. Seemingly little has been omitted from his story, which at times meanders off track to touch on: the saga of the Popescu family; his marriage to Iris, a child of Holocaust survivors; Romanian history; the intricacies of post-Ceauescu politics; his wife's return to her parents' native Czechoslovakia; and finally, a self-indulgent glimpse of the machinations of Hollywood movie executives. The Return is inseparable from Popescu's unique literary voice and from his overpowering but compelling personality. But his wife also is a central figure. A rare subject of joy and hope in a book otherwise laden with family tensions and disappointments, Iris supplies an uplifting counterargument to The Return's pessimistic thesis: that ``patriotism . . . comes from family, and if it's tortured and incomplete, it means that the family was tortured and incomplete.'' A moving, albeit verbose, very East European testimony about roots, the writer's life, and personal discovery. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A disappointing and pretentious memoir,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Return (Hardcover)
Petru Popescu was apparently viewed as a writer in Romania much as Jackie Susann, whom he dismisses as "trash," is viewed in the US. Romanians who lived through the Ceaucescu and Iliescu years will not be taken in by Mr. Popescu's posturing, self-aggrandizement, and embellishments. The writing style is stilted and harsh, reflecting the author's former career as a tool for a corrupt and out-of-control government. The text contains many language and spelling errors that should have been corrected by an editor. This book was a very difficult read. Its value is in some of the descriptions of day to day life in Communist Romania, which most people cannot imagine. A far superior book -- both in style and accuracy -- is "The Hole in the Flag" by Andrei Codrescu, another Romanian ex-patriate who presents a compelling history and memoir without the personal puffery.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Worth Reading,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Return (Hardcover)
I would like to thank Petru Popescu for writing this book and for so openly sharing his experiences of, and feelings about, life in Romania. Having several Romanian friends and acquaintances, Popescu's book filled in a lot of blanks for me, and answered questions that have sometimes proven much too painful for my friends to answer. I have researched Romania's communist and recent history fairly extensively in the course of my work, and have not come across anything that has been as informative on a personal level as The Return. Other reviewers here have noted that Popescu comes across as a bit full of himself. I agree. On page 220 he notes that his wife, whom he obviously loves very much, has been "imprinted by motherhood, but (is) still thin." (If my husband paid me a compliment like that, I would throw all of his clothes out on the lawn. Who "imprinted" her, exactly? ) He also informs the reader that he is talented, published, filmed, televised, well-known, flies first class, owns a Mercedes, resides in the 90210 zip code, and has enjoyed many a sexual escapade to boot. While Popescu may lack modesty and his womanizing may strike some readers as a bit disturbing, this book is worth reading. Popescu has spared nothing in displaying the details of his humanity both within and apart from communism. It is a story that should be heard.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Haunting Look Back,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Return (Hardcover)
The images are vivid and many lives are captured in Popescu's book. We find in his 'return' the return we must all make.
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