Pronto seremos felices

AUTHOR: Ignacio Vidal-Folch
PUBLISHER: Editorial Planeta
GENRE: Historical fiction
READER’S NAME: Danielle Maxson
DATE: April 19, 2015

Pronto seremos felices (Soon We Will Be Happy) offers Westerners a rare and intimate glimpse into life in Eastern Europe during the final years of the Cold War. The novel is narrated by its protagonist, a travelling businessman from Spain who spent several years working in Eastern Europe, developing a variety of business and personal relationships. On his final business trip, he decides to visit Camila, a former colleague living in Prague, with whom he had lost touch. His journey to Prague, and what he learns there about Camila’s fate, sets off a series of meetings with other old friends, lovers, colleagues, and acquaintances in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Romania. The fiction is interwoven with factual accounts of historical figures from these countries.

The first-person narration can be a bit confusing because protagonist often juxtaposes his memories of life in these places with the narration of his present-day trip and what he learns about the people he once knew. The structure of the book helps to alleviate some of the confusion, however. It is divided into five three-chapter sections, each section named for and focused on one person who influenced the narrator’s life. The first three sections (named for Isabela, Alina, and Otik) tell the stories of several co-workers, friends, acquaintances, and a former lover. All of them live and meet in the Czech Republic, although at least one is a Spanish expatriate and thus shares a homeland with the narrator. The fourth section, centered on a man named Petru, is set primarily in Bucharest and describes the effects of the Romanian Revolution of 1989 on the narrator, his friends and acquaintances. This part of the story includes a detailed description of the trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceau?escu, who are unnamed but easily recognizable. The fifth section is named for Felipe, another Spanish expatriate who was introduced earlier in the novel. The narrator’s final visit with him in Bulgaria frames another true story: the mysterious disappearance and death of Grigor Lenkov, a Bulgarian poet and translator who was invited to St. Petersburg, ostensibly to receive a prize for his translation of Eugene Onegin. He returned from St. Petersburg in a casket, having committed suicide while hospitalized for a possible heart attack, according to Soviet officials. His family, however, suspected that he was killed.

By the end of the novel, one realizes that the author has created a rich tapestry of intersecting lives, all bound together by their connection to the narrator, and all fixed firmly in the landscape of the Eastern Bloc countries. Author Ignacio Vidal-Folch drew on his personal experience as a journalist in Eastern Europe to create this tapestry, and his familiarity with the places in which he sets the novel is evident. Descriptions of cities, streets, and buildings are vivid, and the characters are fully fleshed out and believable. The story also echoes Vidal-Folch’s experience as a Spaniard in a foreign land. It includes a thorough description of the church of St. Thomas in Prague, which is mentioned specifically as a gathering place for Spanish expatriates, and occasionally ties events in these countries to important events in Spain, such as the 2004 Madrid train bombings. These and other details link Eastern and Western Europe in a way many US readers have not previously experienced.

 

Vidal-Folch is a prolific writer, with a host of novels, short stories, essays, and even comic books. I believe that Pronto seremos felices is an excellent candidate for introducing his work to the English-speaking US market. The Cold War still resonates with the American public, so the novel’s focus on personal relationships behind the Iron Curtain should attract a US audience. Vidal-Folch’s work also offers some historical insight into lesser-known people and incidents that deserve more attention.

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