Valeria's Last Stand: A Novel [Hardcover]

Marc Fitten (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 28, 2009

A comic romp celebrating late-flowering love in a Hungarian village that will appeal to readers of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian.

Valeria is a whale in a puddle. She harrumphs her daily way through her backwater Hungarian village, finding equal fault with the new, the old, the foreign, and the familiar. Her decades of universal contempt have turned her into a touchstone of her little community—whatever she scorns the least must be the best, after all. But, on a day like any other, her spinster’s heart is struck by an unlikely arrow: The village potter, long known and little noticed, captures her fancy, and Valeria finds herself suddenly cast in a role she never expected to play. This one deviation from character, this one loose thread, is all it takes for the delicately woven fabric of village life to unravel. And, for the first time in a long time, Valeria couldn’t care less. With humor and sensitivity, author Marc Fitten delivers an unexpected and entirely inspiring first novel that will leave you begging for more.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best of the Month, May 2009: Set in the fictional town of Zivatar (by all appearances, a sleepy Hungarian village of the post-Communist era that time--and capitalism--forgot), Valeria's Last Stand is full of the kind of colorful, Chaucerian characters you'd expect to find in a fable. There's Ibolya, the bawdy, hot-tempered tavern owner who taunts patrons with her ample bosom and cheap beer; a greedy, glad-handing mayor, desperate for rich foreign investors to put the town on the map; and there's even a trickster in the form of a chimney sweep, a misanthropic scoundrel who arrives just in time to bring a brewing scandal to full-tilt. At the center of it all is Valeria, a feisty spinster who thrives on her neighbors' scorn until the day she finds herself unexpectedly smitten with the local potter. Theirs is a tempestuous attraction, igniting a vicious rumor mill that reveals--with no shortage of humor or wisdom--the pride and prejudice plaguing the town. As in any fable, there's a lesson to be learned here, but there's nothing heavy-handed about it: Marc Fitten deftly warms these characters to the notion that change, though inevitable, can do them good. --Anne Bartholomew

From Publishers Weekly

Life in an isolated Hungarian village is turned upside down by an unusual love affair in Fitten's promising debut. In the small hamlet of Zivatar, 68-year-old Valeria is known by all as a cantankerous woman, quick to criticize everything from the produce at the market to the mayor's lofty ambitions to lure foreign investors to the town. But a chance encounter one day with the elderly local potter—a man Valeria has known for years but never noticed—changes everything. The widower potter falls just as hard for Valeria, despite his relationship with Ibolya, the owner of the village's only tavern. Unaccustomed to being smitten, Valeria tries to maintain her normal routine, but the village is in an uproar over this unlikely love triangle. The arrival of a traveling chimney sweep intent on bilking the townspeople sends another ripple through what was once a placid village. Fitten is not always successful in balancing character development with the larger themes of power and progress, but the irascible Valeria makes such a unique heroine that readers may be willing to overlook the story's less fluid elements. (May)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (April 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596916206
• ISBN-13: 978-1596916203
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #535,815 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pleasant Surprise, March 1, 2009

By 

S.B. (Fairfield, CT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Valeria's Last Stand: A Novel (Hardcover)

This is a light hearted love story with an unexpected romantic couple. Valeria is a 68 year old spinster living in the Hungarian town of Zivatar. Valeria suffered heartbreak as a young woman and has since become the crotchety town hag. She finds love again with the town potter, but he is involved with the pub owner Ibolya. Each member of this strange love triangle fears that this is their last chance at love. Valeria and Ibolya both want the potter and neither will let anyone or anything get in their way.
This is a delightful story written as if it were an Hungarian folk tale. Many characters are unnamed and referred to only by their occupation: the mayor, the potter, etc. Well written and featuring a host of zany characters, I highly recommend this book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Small Town in Hungary, February 24, 2009

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Valeria's Last Stand: A Novel (Hardcover)

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Set in a small town in Hungary, in what appears to be the late 1990s, this charming debut novel revolves around a senior citizen love triangle. The town's well-liked, white-haired, widower potter has not only taken up with a busty, lusty, and venomous tavern owner, but also falls in bed with a pear-shaped, sourpuss spinster (the Valeria of the title). For a town so far off the beaten track that both WWII and the 1956 revolution were merely something that happened over the horizon to some other people, the tug-of-war between the tavernista and Valeria ranks as a major showdown. It's not for nothing that the town is named Zivatar -- the word means "thunderstorm" in Hungarian, which is emblematic of the chaos that is about to engulf the timeless town.

That chaos comes not only from the battle between the tavernista and Valeria for the exclusive affections of the potter, but also the arrival of an scheming itinerant chimney-sweep. Meanwhile, another subplot concerns the mayor's scheme to connect to the town to the national rail system, and thus usher in a new era of connectedness and prosperity. So along with what is a simple, and frequently funny, story of matchmaking is the larger theme of modernity arriving at this little hamlet, where the ability to buy an entire bag of imported oranges is a mark of true wealth and power.

There's nothing particularly deep or grand about any of this, it's a nice little story that reminds the reader that it's never too late for love, and that thoughtlessness in affairs of the heart (or body) carries consequences. Fitten has managed to capture a certain timeless tone without it getting cutsey or cloying -- indeed, there is some coarse language, and even a graphic sexual scene or two, which are a nice counterpoint to what might have been a merely quaint portrayal. The only real misstep comes at the end, where the townspeople start to riot in a way that didn't feel particularly plausible. On the whole, it's a fun little book, the first in a projected trilogy.

Note: For fiction written by Hungarians about small towns, try George Konrad's The City Builder or Laszlo Krasznahorkai's The Melancholy of Resistance.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Zivatar, next 3 exits, March 29, 2009

By 

Robert D. Harmon "bobnbob3" (Mill Valley, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Valeria's Last Stand: A Novel (Hardcover)

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In this astonishing, brilliant first novel, the author creates a village peopled by vivid and unforgettable characters. Although it's set in Hungary in the 1990s, in a place bypassed by history and set in its ways, the book makes it all seem familiar, warm, and entirely believable. Simply stated, after a lifetime of mundane work and gossip, the town potter and the village hag fall in love, and Zivatar is never the same after that. Even the coming of the railroad and of EU-era progress seems of less import.

That this is from a young American author is even more remarkable. Nothing rings false or out of synch in his village, particularly a village that no passing army, in over a century of tumultuous history over the horizon, thought Zivatar worth sacking or even notice. His characters seem likeable in their own irritating ways and they interact in a story that, in its quirky way, goes from grumpy beginnings to hilarious complications and a wild denouement. If this is indeed the start of trilogy then those will be worth looking forward to. Certainly, this book stands on its own as a delightful and well-crafted story.

Highly recommend.