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Romance Language
Part love story, part historical drama, part coming-of-age novel, Romance Language begins in 2007 as 17-year-old Petra runs off from college and shows up in far-away Romania on a quest to find the father she's never known and to uncover the tumultuous events that led to her birth. The story also flashes back to 1989 when Petra's mother, a magazine writer, is assigned to write an expose of Europe's most brutal communist regime.
272 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2009
23 people want to read
About the author
Alan Elsner
13 books9 followersAlan Elsner has 30 years' experience in journalism, covering stories ranging from the September 11, 2001 attacks on America and the crisis in the Middle East to the 2000 Presidential election and the end of the Cold War. Elsners career has been marked by a passion for justice and truth, unquestioned integrity, and a willingness to confront the powerful, the complacent and the evasive.
In The Nazi Hunter he turns that formidable knowledge and expertise towards a gripping thriller weaving together fierce partisan politics, the search for ex-Nazi war criminals, romance, music and a crazed far-right militia intent on bringing down the government.
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In The Nazi Hunter he turns that formidable knowledge and expertise towards a gripping thriller weaving together fierce partisan politics, the search for ex-Nazi war criminals, romance, music and a crazed far-right militia intent on bringing down the government.
"
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 3, 2021
Love In 1989
One of the better features of the Amazon/Goodreads review system is the opportunity it offers to get to know other readers and writers. Alan Elsner became an Amazon friend a year or so ago and we have corresponded on occasion since then. I was delighted when Alan offered me the opportunity to read and review his new novel "Romance Language." As I do, Alan lives in the Washington, D.C. area. He has been an international journalist for 30 years and has written an earlier novel "The Nazi Hunter" together with works of nonfiction. He was posted in Europe and in Romania during the events of 1989, discussed in his novel, and he returned to Romania in 2007 as a Knight International Journalism Fellow.
The year 1989 saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and, more broadly, the fall of communism in Europe. The implications of these events remain momentous and unfolding. Although not a Soviet satellite, Romania in 1989 was under the throes of the brutal dictatorship of Nicolae Ceasescu and his wife Elena. The Ceasescus impoverished the country, crushed all dissent and established a far-ranging secret police in which neighbors spied against each other. In a revolution more bloody that most of its companions, the Ceasescu regime too fell in 1989. Elsner's book is set against the backdrop of 1989 Romania.
But the book is much more than a historical novel. In a brief author's note following the story, Elsner states that "I wanted to write a book that took seriously the idea of true love." He has done so here. The book tells the story of the love between a dissident Romanian poet, Stephan Petrescu, (a fictitious character) and an American journalist, Elizabeth O'Neil who receives an assignment to cover Romania in 1989 as her marriage to a novelist named Tom is deteriorating. During her stay, she and Stephan have a brief affair, and Elizabeth becomes pregnant with his child, Petra.
With the violence in Romania, Elizabeth returns to America where she and Tom reconcile and Tom generously agrees to raise Petra as his own child. Petra becomes a precocious student and is attending Brown University at the age of 17. When Tom dies, Petra learns that her biological father was Stephan, who lives in Romania. She surreptitiously leaves Brown to travel to Romania to meet her father. During this time, she meets a group of young people, including the sexually active Angela and Mihai, a violinist and composer of 22 or 23 who has studied in the United States. The young and sexually inexperienced Petra and the older and experienced Mihal must come to terms with and decide how they will handle their feelings for each other.
The story is told in a series of short sections that alternate between 1989 and 2007. Elizabeth tells the story of her relationship to Stephan in a series of long letters, most of which are written when Elizabeth thinks her daughter is studying at Brown. Thus, Elsner offers a picture of Romania in 1987 on the eve of and during the Revolution and of the passionate affair between Stephan and Elizabeth. He then shows the greatly changed Romania of 2007 with its hard won freedom, economic development, and sexual openness among its young people. The reader witnesses and is invited to reflect upon a good many different kinds of romantic, love relationships, including the relationship between Elizabeth and Stephan, Elizabeth and Tom, Petra and Mihai, and Angela and her lover of the moment. Elsner also has a good deal to say about the parent-child bond as between Elizabeth and Petra and between Tom and Stephan and Petra as well.
The love between Elizabeth and Stephan is the major theme of the book. It is told in the language of poetry, ranging from Shakespeare to Stephan's own writing and of music, including young Mihai's violin playing and efforts at electronic composition, and Elizabeth's and Stephan's dance to the unlikely accompaniment of Chopin's Fourth Ballade. Elsner emphasizes the power of art and love to redeem the human condition, especially when it is under the throes of enforced poverty and political oppression.
The book moves effectively between the United States and Romania, between 1989 and 2007, and between Elizabeth, Petra, and Stephan. It helped me remember the events that took place in Europe 20 years ago, but it helped me even more in reflecting upon the nature of human sexuality and love. I was pleased to have a talented friend who could write this book.
Robin Friedman
One of the better features of the Amazon/Goodreads review system is the opportunity it offers to get to know other readers and writers. Alan Elsner became an Amazon friend a year or so ago and we have corresponded on occasion since then. I was delighted when Alan offered me the opportunity to read and review his new novel "Romance Language." As I do, Alan lives in the Washington, D.C. area. He has been an international journalist for 30 years and has written an earlier novel "The Nazi Hunter" together with works of nonfiction. He was posted in Europe and in Romania during the events of 1989, discussed in his novel, and he returned to Romania in 2007 as a Knight International Journalism Fellow.
The year 1989 saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and, more broadly, the fall of communism in Europe. The implications of these events remain momentous and unfolding. Although not a Soviet satellite, Romania in 1989 was under the throes of the brutal dictatorship of Nicolae Ceasescu and his wife Elena. The Ceasescus impoverished the country, crushed all dissent and established a far-ranging secret police in which neighbors spied against each other. In a revolution more bloody that most of its companions, the Ceasescu regime too fell in 1989. Elsner's book is set against the backdrop of 1989 Romania.
But the book is much more than a historical novel. In a brief author's note following the story, Elsner states that "I wanted to write a book that took seriously the idea of true love." He has done so here. The book tells the story of the love between a dissident Romanian poet, Stephan Petrescu, (a fictitious character) and an American journalist, Elizabeth O'Neil who receives an assignment to cover Romania in 1989 as her marriage to a novelist named Tom is deteriorating. During her stay, she and Stephan have a brief affair, and Elizabeth becomes pregnant with his child, Petra.
With the violence in Romania, Elizabeth returns to America where she and Tom reconcile and Tom generously agrees to raise Petra as his own child. Petra becomes a precocious student and is attending Brown University at the age of 17. When Tom dies, Petra learns that her biological father was Stephan, who lives in Romania. She surreptitiously leaves Brown to travel to Romania to meet her father. During this time, she meets a group of young people, including the sexually active Angela and Mihai, a violinist and composer of 22 or 23 who has studied in the United States. The young and sexually inexperienced Petra and the older and experienced Mihal must come to terms with and decide how they will handle their feelings for each other.
The story is told in a series of short sections that alternate between 1989 and 2007. Elizabeth tells the story of her relationship to Stephan in a series of long letters, most of which are written when Elizabeth thinks her daughter is studying at Brown. Thus, Elsner offers a picture of Romania in 1987 on the eve of and during the Revolution and of the passionate affair between Stephan and Elizabeth. He then shows the greatly changed Romania of 2007 with its hard won freedom, economic development, and sexual openness among its young people. The reader witnesses and is invited to reflect upon a good many different kinds of romantic, love relationships, including the relationship between Elizabeth and Stephan, Elizabeth and Tom, Petra and Mihai, and Angela and her lover of the moment. Elsner also has a good deal to say about the parent-child bond as between Elizabeth and Petra and between Tom and Stephan and Petra as well.
The love between Elizabeth and Stephan is the major theme of the book. It is told in the language of poetry, ranging from Shakespeare to Stephan's own writing and of music, including young Mihai's violin playing and efforts at electronic composition, and Elizabeth's and Stephan's dance to the unlikely accompaniment of Chopin's Fourth Ballade. Elsner emphasizes the power of art and love to redeem the human condition, especially when it is under the throes of enforced poverty and political oppression.
The book moves effectively between the United States and Romania, between 1989 and 2007, and between Elizabeth, Petra, and Stephan. It helped me remember the events that took place in Europe 20 years ago, but it helped me even more in reflecting upon the nature of human sexuality and love. I was pleased to have a talented friend who could write this book.
Robin Friedman
October 12, 2009
It's 1989 and magazine writer Liz Graham has been given a new assignment. She must travel to Romania to write an article about the most brutal Communist dictatorship in Europe, a regime which keeps its half-starved people under constant surveillance and which ruthlessly crushes any signs of dissident. In Bucharest, Liz meets Stefan Petrescu, a dissid ent poet and one of the few with the courage to confront the regime. They feel a powerful mutual attraction. But in Ceausescu's Romania, it is a crime for a citizen even to have contact with a foreigner.
We follow Liz as she tries to investigate a nation shivering in unheated apartments, scrabbling for food on the black market and avoiding the constant harrassment of the secret police. While collecting information for her article, she desperately searches for moments alone with Petrescu.
We flash forward to 2007. Liz's daughter Petra arrives in Bucharest. She's run away from her freshman semester at Brown University to search for the father she's never known -- whose existence she never even suspected until recently.
When the narrative switches between 1989 and 2007, we follow Petra's adventures with a group of young Romanians, attends her father's seminar and begins her own, nervous, halting first adult relationship.
As the book progresses, the two narratives gradually converge. As the fall of 1989 arrives, Communist governments are teetering all over Eastern Europe. The Berlin Wall, falls; in Prague the regime is swept away in a peaceful revolution. But the Romanian dictator is determined to stand firm, no matterv what the cost. The climax comes in December 1989 as the Romanian people rise up against the tanks and guns of the regime. Bucharest explodes in violence. Petrescu is at the center of the opposition while Liz is feverishly covering th e biggest story of her life. Their love becomes entangled with the fate of a nation. Ultimately, they will be called on to make the ultimate sacrifice.
We follow Liz as she tries to investigate a nation shivering in unheated apartments, scrabbling for food on the black market and avoiding the constant harrassment of the secret police. While collecting information for her article, she desperately searches for moments alone with Petrescu.
We flash forward to 2007. Liz's daughter Petra arrives in Bucharest. She's run away from her freshman semester at Brown University to search for the father she's never known -- whose existence she never even suspected until recently.
When the narrative switches between 1989 and 2007, we follow Petra's adventures with a group of young Romanians, attends her father's seminar and begins her own, nervous, halting first adult relationship.
As the book progresses, the two narratives gradually converge. As the fall of 1989 arrives, Communist governments are teetering all over Eastern Europe. The Berlin Wall, falls; in Prague the regime is swept away in a peaceful revolution. But the Romanian dictator is determined to stand firm, no matterv what the cost. The climax comes in December 1989 as the Romanian people rise up against the tanks and guns of the regime. Bucharest explodes in violence. Petrescu is at the center of the opposition while Liz is feverishly covering th e biggest story of her life. Their love becomes entangled with the fate of a nation. Ultimately, they will be called on to make the ultimate sacrifice.
July 18, 2015
I thoroughly recommend Alan Elsner's novel Romance Language, which I found gripping, well constructed and insightful. Alan does some very cool things exploring the nature of love over time, as well as providing gritty detail about life in Romania under Ceausescu and the 1989 events that overthrew him. The author demonstrates considerable empathy and imagination in his rendering of the two female protagonists, a 17-year-old student and her journalist mother, and draws a range of other characters with precision and aplomb. I read it in two days straight and greatly enjoyed it. (Note - I have known Alan since 1990 and have occasionally worked with him.)
December 17, 2009
This is a truly lovely as well as a riveting book. Liz Graham, an American journalist, falls in love with a Romanian dissident during the Communist era. Years later, her daughter sets out on a quest to discover what happened to her mother.
It's passionate and exciting. The characters all ring true and the descriptions of the Romanian revolution are enthralling.
It's passionate and exciting. The characters all ring true and the descriptions of the Romanian revolution are enthralling.
June 15, 2010
This is a book my cousin wrote about Romania from 1989 to present day. Very good.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews