Plum Brandy: Croatian Journeys

by Novakovich, Josip

• ISBN13: 9781893996571
• ISBN10: 1893996573
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-05-01
• Publisher: Consortium Book Sales & Dist

Summary

Immigrant writer Novakovich records his journeys to find his roots, some to his native Croatia, some no farther than Cleveland, where he searches for the grave of his grandmother, who refused to return to Croatia with the rest of her family. This moving collection reflects the joys and the difficulties in returning to a homeland left behind. "Novakovich is a strong, original writer. His subtle prose makes me beam with pleasure, and break into an anxious sweat at the same time. He has mastered the tone of bearing witness as a principle of moral literature."-Philip Lopate, The Art of the Personal Essay Josip Novakovich is the author of Yolk, Apricots from Chernobyl, and Salvation and Other Disasters.

Table of Contents

Introduction
On the Art of Visiting Your Homeland	11	(4)
Prologue
Tako Je To	15	(6)
Sawdust Memories
Grandmother's Tongue	21	(15)
Secret Spaces Of Childhood	36	(6)
A Meditation on Wood	42	(3)
Deceptive Pleasures of Chess	45	(5)
Sawdust Memories	50	(9)
Daily Bread	59	(4)
Croatian Journal
A Homecoming	63	(13)
An Anti-Story	76	(7)
Guns of August	83	(17)
Countries Without Bridges	100	(27)
A Place in Between	127	(8)
Writing Home
Hvar	135	(5)
Thin and Fat Cats	140	(2)
Letter From Croatia	142	(15)
A Train Romance	157	(9)
On Finding a Grave in Cleveland	166	(11)
Epilogue
My Son's Views	177