The Return

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Popescu has written what at first glance appears to be a tale of one who grew up under communism, escaped and then returned to visit his native land. Yet as a novelist (Almost Adam), journalist and filmmaker, he brings more to this account than a string of wistful memories. Popescu is a keen observer, and his description of life under one of Europe's worst dictatorships since WWII is chilling. Especially revealing and at times hilarious are his experiences as a journalist in the entourage of Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu: he wrote his articles before the events he covered occurred, because he understood how the controlled press was expected to report. Popescu, who was a well-known author in Romania before his defection as a young man (the text is not always clear about the dates of such events), also writes affectingly here of the death of his twin brother from polio at age 13 and its effect on his family. His text is at times overwritten (the novelist repeating for effect?), and he doesn't resist letting us know he's a success in America by his frequent name dropping ("my friend John Cheever") and other boasts: when he returns to his native Bucharest in 1991, he has to tell us he's wearing an Armani jacket (le collezioni or just Emporium?). Yet, despite the rough spots, this is an enlightening, absorbing work about surviving totalitarianism and going on to achieve the American dream. (Sept.)

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. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 3/15/97.]Jill Jaracz, Chicago

Booknews

The author, a prominent opposition writer in Romania prior to the 1989 revolution, describes the tortuous life he led in Communist Romania, his subsequent successful but memory- laden life as a screenwriter in California, and the experience of returning to Romania after the revolution to come to terms with his past. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Kirkus Reviews

An émigré'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.