Only one hundred days before the
downfall of Ceausescu's remige the book's protagonist arrives in
Bucharest to start working at the local university. While following
his fate the reader gets to know a country in change. The regime is
still swinging the iron fist in a society of corruption and fear.
Dissidents are in constant danger of the Securitate, Ceausescu's
secret police, that casts a cold shadow over Romania. He gets to know
both sides of society: gim poverty is contrasted by the luxurious
life of those privileged who are able to get everything they desire.
Meanwhile, the shops for ordinary people are empty and the city is
scarred by the demolition caused by Ceausescu's gangs. The
protagonist, protected by his status as a foreign lecturer, is able
to learn of all aspects of the late Romania. He gets to know
dissidents as well as stallwarts of Ceausescu, poor as well as those
privileged.
In his semi-biographic novel Patrick
McGuinnes manages to describe the doomed society lively and enables
his readers to travel a city and a country that no longer exist. He
telly a story that still isn't familar with many in the western
world.
