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    Triptych
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    Triptych
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    Triptych
    Ebook383 pages7 hours

    Triptych

    By Margit Liesche

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Budapest, 1956. In this darkest year in the modern history of Hungary, a national uprising against Soviet occupiers and their reign of terror is underway. Eleven-year-old Evike and her firebrand mother steal deep into battle zones in support of civilian freedom fighters armed only with primitive weapons and desperate courage against the heavy artillery of trained Russian troops. Taken in for interrogation by the secret police, little Evike spins a story to deflect attention from her mother's revolutionary activities. A story that will irrevocably alter a number of lives and reach its tentacles, thirty years later, into the life of Ildiko Palmay.

    Chicago, 1986. Ildiko, 37, a librarian and ESL teacher, the American-born daughter of Hungarian refugees, is caught in a web of guilt and regret over her mother's mystifying death. Unsettled by her life and her romantic failures, she finds herself suddenly and unexpectedly drawn back to her roots, first to the Hungarian neighborhood of her youth in Chicago—and eventually to the Russian-occupied city of Budapest. Along the way, she meets a magnetic man who may not be what he seems, uncovers a trail of secrets and betrayals that eventually intersect with the tangled knot of the mother-daughter participants in the Revolution—and she discovers the shocking truth about her mother's death.

    Triptych is the suspenseful unfolding of two parallel stories of mother and daughter relationships forged in the brutalities of the 1956 Hungarian revolution. Triptych is about survival, displacement, the corrosive power of secrets, and, ultimately, the healing power of forgiveness.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSourcebooks
    Release dateOct 1, 2013
    ISBN9781615954568
    Unavailable
    Triptych
    Author

    Margit Liesche

    Margit Liesche is the daughter of Hungarian refugees who arrived in the U.S. in 1947 following eight years of missionary service in war-torn central China. She lives and writes in Marin County, California.

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    Reviews for Triptych

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    • 4/5
      This is a small unassuming book that packed a huge wallop. The title "Triptych: A Mystery", the short summary and the photoshoot cover didn't really do justice to what I found released upon me amongst the pages. An overpowering, emotional story on a theme I am deeply interested in. The escape and survival of victims of communism the world wide over but especially from the cold war. I had not ever read about Hungary's "liberation" by the Soviets but have read extensively about Poland's fight for freedom from their Soviet "liberators". Heart-wrenching stuff and Hungary's tale is no less brutal. Imagine waiting for the Nazi's to leave your country and to be freed and liberated from the Fascist rule, concentration camps, etc. only to have the Communist Soviets come in behind them to enslave you, send you to work farms, teach your children to spy on you, etc. 1956 was the year Hungary choose to fight back, it lasted 3 weeks and thousands died on both sides before the Soviets got things back under control.This story goes back and forth in time from the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 to 1986 in which a daughter from the present Cold War time goes back to Hungary to find out what happened to her mother's twin sister who disappeared shortly after the Uprising when she was arrested at night and never seen again. The characters are wonderful and the pacing switching from the past to the present is seamless. Telling the history of the Uprising through remembrances and as it happens. Mostly the book is historical fiction, but around the 65% mark a murder happens and the pacing changes to that more suited to a mystery and the daughter, Ildiko, goes on a chase to track down the murderer. I must say my reading speed increased suitably to the pace. This part wasn't difficult to figure out as the whole story had been leading in a direction that made me feel something was going to happen. It was a very satisfying read, on a topic I'm thrilled to have learned more about, well-written, with great characters and tightly woven plot, plus a tiny bit of a fun romance in their too <3 I'd recommend it more for the historical aspect than the mystery but the two do go together well.
    • 4/5
      "...never allow a murderer of loved ones to go unpunished."________ 3 1/2 starsThere is a lyrical quality to Leische's writing despite her gritty subject matter of war, betrayal, fear and death.Two main stories unfold, parallel to each other, set in different times yet linked by the commonalities of the unforeseen, of loss and of grief.The story moves in and out of 1956 to 1986, from Budapest and the Hungarian Revolution to Chicago; from 11 year old Évike in Budapest to 37 year old Ildikó in Chicago, daughter of Hungarian refugees whose past is surrounded in secrecy. ldikó's search for the truth about her roots and her mother's untimely death (was it an accident, murder or suicide?) under a Chicago train will take Ildikó to the Budapest of 1986, with Hungary still a satellite of the USSR.Ildikó's search for her history is a revelation, particularly as the riddle of her mother's death, the fate of her mother's sister and the links between the now and the past are puzzling. Ildikó sadly reflects as she endeavours to make sense of all the confluences in her life, 'now I have only my memory to search for solving the unknowns of [my mother's] death.'An embroidered collage ldikó's mother Edith had crafted, a triptych of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, holds a key to some of the mystery. There were some moments of confusion as I didn't always fully realize who was talking.I found the book interesting, set as it is against the Hungarian uprising background and life under a harsh regime. Those whose personal histories share this time I am sure would find Triptych worthwhile.An interesting work.A NetGalley ARC