A CLOSE RELATION

by D.A. Willcox

There are two things Bede Finnegan is sure of - history is important and girls embarrassing. In Central Europe, where he is researching his PhD thesis, a strange teacher and a cataclysmic event, make him reconsider his views on history - some people might make it and others write it, but governments ignore it.As for girls,an older woman introduces him to the delights of Pernod and ice and Hungarian folk dancing. But beneath this sunny surface, dark forces are gathering; everyone Bede meets, the man with the plastic smile, the Mary Poppins look-alike,the man who cries each night, have their secret histories. So does Bede.Set between the Danube and the Tisza rivers, this novel connects the behaviour of the Barbarians in the fifth century with governments in the twenty-first, and wonders if anything has changed. It raises questions about the use and misuse of power and the nature of relationships and, whilst it is thought-provoking, it is also amusing.

269 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 17, 2010