I was really grasping at straws as most of my e-libraries didn't seem to have anything particularly appealing on offer. Then my daughter's Hungarian BFF came over for a playdate and that made me realize that, other than The Paul Street Boys, I had never never a single Hungarian book, so I chanced upon this novel.
The start was a bit of a slog, with the focus on female companionship and bickering not being something I found engaging, but then I got into the novel ("getting into a novel" - what an awful turn of phrase...) and I was left in awe of what I think can be considered a small masterpiece.
Szabó's book is one of small secrets that are justifiably oh-so-important to her characters. It is one of love between people who at first glance have very little in common. And crucially is one in which the reader (or at least, that was the case for me) finds him/herself justifying most of the narrator's decisions and actions, while eventually accepting also Emerenc's viewpoint and, at the end of the day, wishing s/he was more like the cantankerous cleaning lady who appears to singlehandedly hold a small community together.
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