An incandescent love story—a thrilling debut novel—that moves from Romania to America, from the Carpathian Mountains to Chicago, from totalitarianism to freedom, and from passionate infatuation to profound understanding.
In the summer of 1977, seventeen-year-old Mona Manoliu falls in love with Mihai, a mysterious boy who lives in the romantic mountain city where she spends her summers. She can think of nothing and no one else. But life in Romania under Nicolae Ceauşescu is difficult. Hunger and paranoia infect everyone; fear, too.And one day, Mona sees Mihai wearing the black leather jacket favored by the secret police. Could he be one of them?
As food shortages worsen, as more and more of her loved ones disappear in “accidents,” Mona comes to understand that she must leave Romania. She escapes in secret—narrowly avoiding the police—through Yugoslavia to Italy, and then, to Chicago. But she leaves without saying a final good-bye to Mihai. And though she struggles to bury her longing for the past—she becomes a doctoral student, marries, has children—she finds herself compelled to return to her country, determined to learn the truth about her one great love.
Seductive, suspenseful, intensely evocative, and told in an astonishingly original, poetic voice, Train to Trieste announces “a remarkable writer enriching American letters with her Romanian perspective. We are lucky to call her ours” (Sandra Cisneros).
Genre: Literary Fiction
In the summer of 1977, seventeen-year-old Mona Manoliu falls in love with Mihai, a mysterious boy who lives in the romantic mountain city where she spends her summers. She can think of nothing and no one else. But life in Romania under Nicolae Ceauşescu is difficult. Hunger and paranoia infect everyone; fear, too.And one day, Mona sees Mihai wearing the black leather jacket favored by the secret police. Could he be one of them?
As food shortages worsen, as more and more of her loved ones disappear in “accidents,” Mona comes to understand that she must leave Romania. She escapes in secret—narrowly avoiding the police—through Yugoslavia to Italy, and then, to Chicago. But she leaves without saying a final good-bye to Mihai. And though she struggles to bury her longing for the past—she becomes a doctoral student, marries, has children—she finds herself compelled to return to her country, determined to learn the truth about her one great love.
Seductive, suspenseful, intensely evocative, and told in an astonishingly original, poetic voice, Train to Trieste announces “a remarkable writer enriching American letters with her Romanian perspective. We are lucky to call her ours” (Sandra Cisneros).
Genre: Literary Fiction
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