This autobiographical novel is the author’s debut and also the first part of her unplanned trilogy, followed by the novels The Year of the Rooster and Life is Wonderful.
The topic of childhood and adolescence in totalitarian Czechoslovakia is explored in an evocative and original way. Detached messages and ironic humor result in a controversial yet sensitive statement about that time and its people. The author’s father, the writer Pavel Kohout, and the playwright and later president of free Czechoslovakia, Václav Havel, are concealed behind sophisticated nicknames. The author comes to terms with her traumatic feelings resulting from a complicated relationship with her father. To this key theme another is added: love and motherhood – love as an attractive force, motherhood as an unfulfilled yearning.