Extraordinary Renditions

by Andrew Ervin

Set in Budapest—a city marked by its rich cultural heritage, the scars of empire, the fresher wounds of industry, and the collateral damage of globalism— Extraordinary Renditions is the sweeping story of three equally tarnished expatriates. World-renowned composer and Holocaust survivor Lajos Harkályi has returned to Hungary to debut his final opera and share his mother's parting gift, the melody from a lullaby she sang as he was forced to leave his Hungarian home for the infamous Czech concentration camp Terezín. Private First Class Jonathan "Brutus" Gibson is being blackmailed by his commanding officer at the US Army base in Hungary, one of the infamous black-sites of the global War on Terror, and he must decide between going AWOL or risking his life to make an illegal firearms deal in Budapest. Aspiring musician Melanie Scholes is preparing for the most important performance of her career as a violinist in Harkályi's opera, but before she takes the stage she must extricate herself from a failing relationship and the inertia that threatens to consume her future. As their lives converge on Independence Day, they too will seek liberation—from the anguish of the Holocaust, the chains of blackmail, and the bonds of conformity. A formidable new voice in American fiction, Ervin tackles the big themes of war, prejudice, and art, lyrically examining the reverberations of unrest in today's central Europe, the United States' legacy abroad, and the resilience of the human spirit.

Genres: Fiction, Hungary, Historical Fiction, American, Holocaust, Literature, Unfinished

183 pages, Paperback

First published August 24, 2010

Reviews

[Andrew Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extraordinary Rendition = transfer – without legal process – of a detainee to the custody of a foreign government for purposes of detention and interrogation.

or

Extraordinary Rendition = a very unusual or remarkable performance or interpretation of a dramatic role or piece of music.

And, as far as this book goes, the answer is… both.

Three novellas linked (in the way of The Wonder Garden) through their location – here it’s the city of Budapest – and with characters that appear in more than one story, and through the meandering flow of a narrative. Well, the last element is somewhat debatable – read on and I’ll explain why.

In the first tale we are introduced to a renowned composer, Lajos Harkályi, who is returning to the city after achieving fame in America. His final opera, inspired by a melody his mother sang to him as he was forced to depart his Hungarian home for the Chech concentration camp Terezín, is to debut on the anniversary of Hungary’s 1848 Revolution. In all honesty very little of consequence happens as Harkályi stumbles around the city. It’s an uncomfortable reunion for him though, as he notices the decay of the place: litter, graffiti and roaming skinheads dispensing their own type of grimness.

The second section is a departure in style and pace from the first in that it reads like a stand-alone thriller. This time we follow an African-American marine, Private First Class ‘Brutus’ Gibson who is based at a ‘black site’ in Hungary where political prisoners from the Middle East are interrogated. Brutus has his problems: he’s having illicit sex with a translator who works at the site (who happens to be the niece of the composer and who we met briefly in the first tale) and, more seriously, he’s being blackmailed by his senior officer. This is the novella I enjoyed most and though it does reach a conclusion of sorts, I'd have happily read more about the fate of this marine.

The final piece introduces aspiring musician Melanie Scholes, who is preparing to play her part, as a violinist, in the performance of Harkályi’s opera. The pace and style here is similar to the first tale, as Melanie reflects on her failing relationship and nurses her nerves through to the commencement of the most important performance of her career. Again, the picture painted of Budapest would not excite the local tourist office but it does provide a decent atmosphere to proceedings and a unity with what has gone before. Unfortunately, it's probably the least effective section of the book and by its end I was left only partially satisfied.

As piece of fiction, I enjoyed all three sections of the book. The stories were well written and filled with interesting characters. I’ve come to expect unfinished endings from short fiction so I was neither particularly surprised or disappointed by what I found here. As far as the author’s wider ambitions are concerned, I think the installation of post 911 global politics into the combined narrative felt a little clunky and seemed to force elements into the stories that weren't necessarily a good fit. In my view, these elements may have served his wider purpose but didn't enhance the individual tales. More importantly, whilst the first and third sections felt like parts of the same story, the second was an anomaly. You had to look harder to find the links (other than an obvious geographic one) – they were there but were more subtle and more obviously political.

But I did enjoy the book. It’s made me cross the city (perhaps unfairly) off my list of places to visit but the whole thing did have character and depth. It made me think and that’s never a bad thing.

[Lee Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flowing and surprisingly bold/powerful trio of interlinked novellas set in Budapest. Not at all a novelistic travelogue. Author does a remarkable job transposing his ex-pat perceptions into the lives of characters unlike each other or the author, each brought to life thanks to forward-flowing stories. Was a little worried at first thanks to the epigram and the first novella's focus that this might be a bit too "literary" for me, but the perception and the pace that animate these characters engaged me and pushed those worries aside. In the middle, there's the audacious execution of a deepish POV story about a black solider from West Philly involved in some corrupt racist military gun-dealin' crap, and this comes between the initial staid, vaguely Sebaldian novella about a Hungarian composer/Holocaust survivor and the third novella focused on a young white chubby American violinist from Boston who ecstatically loses her shit mid-opera in a moving, transporting display of artistic and personal independence that parallels similar yet totally different rebellions in the other parts. Deserves a much wider audience and way more ratings on here, but sadly one of the least generous, idiotically dismissive reviews ever to appear in NYT Book Review print stunted its growth upon publication a few years ago. (I include the link to the review because "low expectations totally exceeded" is always an enjoyable experience compared to "high expectations totally dashed.") Over time, I'm confident that good readers will read this book and right this wrong. The writer lives in Manayunk, which many claim is part of Philadelphia, and I know him, but I hereby swear my praise may be trusted. Surprisingly excellent stuff once again from Coffeehouse (see Leaving the Atocha Station).

[Stacia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

Whether it's a novel or three separate, but interrelated, novellas, it is wonderfully done. Ervin paints a palpable Budapest where I can feel the dry, freezing air, smell the cigarettes, hear the crowds, see the graffiti.... He touches on some big themes too (the Holocaust, racism, the disconnectness of being an expat, corruption, the power of music, imperialism, ...) but with a light enough hand that you can still feel a ray of hope amidst such heavy topics.

The triptych of stories intertwines nicely. The first part took my breath away, being a reminder that we, as humans, need to remember history so we are not doomed to repeat it. It's a testament to beauty, too, surviving in spite of horror (in this section, the Holocaust). I learned about a different part of the Holocaust I didn't know about -- the camp at Terezin. The second story/section is quite different from the first & is a raw & gritty account of a black US soldier stationed in Hungary. It overlaps with the first story a bit & I like seeing the shifting perspectives. It's timely in light of our current race issues. And I like the understated way the author is weaving in the insidious nature of intolerance & racial divide or hate. The last section circles around to the beginning again but from yet another viewpoint, reveling in the beauty of music & freeing your spirit.

And, in a lovely little touch that totally appeals to the book nerd in me, the colophon starts out with...

"In honor of this book's Hungarian setting, the text has been set in Ehrhardt type, which was designed by Miklós (Nicholas) Kis. After taking religious orders, Kis traveled to Amsterdam in the late seventeenth century to learn the arts of printing, type design, punch cutting, and type casting."

... and goes on to give more background about Kis' life (1650-1702). This book made The Millions' list of The 13 Most Underrated Books of 2010 & I would agree with that. Great stuff by a great indie press.

[Jasmine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have lots of interesting insightful things to say about this book instead I am going to go drink several margaritas and come back drunk and replace them with simplistic rambling till then enjoy my stars.

***************

Hi,
welcome to the first review I've done too out of it to actually create a reasonable sentence. In fact I saw a roommate of mine going down the stairs when I was coming in, then he came back up (which was weird) and I looked stupid trying to open the door. but this is irrelevant.

in this review I was going to talk about my history in classic music and the understanding of the connections that forms with other musicians and the dissonance with other people. but that is complicated to please fill it in yourself.

this book is about relationships. expat relationships. relationships between people and relationships between people and places.

The boo does a good job of feeling European which I wasn't expecting.

[Daisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Library copy. Worth owning.
I love the title. And the cover photograph. But that's not all. Budapest is palpable.

The first section sets the book up nicely, lands you in Budapest with a Hungarian composer who's come back for the first time in four decades for a performance of his final opera. The second section is the hardest to digest, about an African-American soldier stationed near Budapest for whom this military is no more than the definition of slavery with Stalinist overtones--and I fear it's all true, as all fiction is.
My favorite section is the last one, about an expatriate violinist, by whose rebellious inspiration I was kind of inspired.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far I'm finding Ervin's first book to be very strong indeed. This is a quintessential example of a book review being misleading, though, specifically Robert Hanks's in The New York Times Book Review, available at ahttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/books/review/Hanks-t.html. I'm a fan of the NYTBR in general--witness the great pieces in this same issue by Dale Peck on Bernhard or Ed Park's fine survey of single sentence novels, or Justin Taylor's thorough, rigorous take on Barry Hannah; I was practically weaned on TBR, frankly. Unfortunately, Hanks misses the mark--or rather, fortunately for us, because Hanks makes it seem as though the book isn't worth reading, which it assuredly is.

Hanks's points of contention just aren't borne out in the book. Consider his claim that "gratuitous cultural references are dropped with embarrassing freedom: on the first page, Harkalyi [a composer] hobnobs with the great Hungarian composer Zoldan Kolady, 'his old friend and mentor'; later, Brutus, a former philosophy student, reads Frantz Fanon, Paul Ricoeur, Marx, and Shakespeare." So one composer is interpersonally linked with another--is this really implausible? Brutus has read three philosophers and...Shakespeare? What truth, exactly, is being stretched? What makes these gratuitous? In fact, Ervin makes it clear that Brutus has read his Shakespeare, as has the superior officer who threatens him and invokes Julius Caesar ominously as a means of intimidating him. This, in fact, is among the details that coalesce to make him a "plausible character," not merely a bearer of themes, as Hanks would have it.

What about Hanks's other digs? He calls the Brutus chapter "incongruously thrillerish." How about the fact that 60 pages into the book we're introduced to an brand-new storyline that gets our pulses pounding and sustains that level of suspense and reader engagement for its 70-odd pages, complete with the twists and turns one hopes for in a thriller? The book's ability to switch gears here is inextricable from its successes.

Hanks writes that Ervin's invocation of the concentration camp of Terezin "feels more like a clumsy attempt to persuade the reader of the author's seriousness than a genuine attempt to grapple with the horror of the Holocaust." Yes, that is, if one ignores the entire characterization of Harkalyi, the composer-protagonist of part one, whose very musical trajectory has been shaped by what happened at Terezin. In fact, what sets the story apart from previous Holocaust narratives is its grappling with the specific conditions at Terezin through the prism of Harkalyi, another "plausible character[.]"

One final point to take issue with is Hanks's assertion that Brutus's narrative "is written in a flat-footed ghetto speak that, with its swipes at 'the Man' and 'the pigs,' is more reminiscent of '70s blaxploitation movies." A simple quote or two from the chapter will serve to dispel this mischaracterization of the style. From the section: "The disembodied Voice of America also provided five minutes of English-language news at the top of every hour. It spoke of the lingering effects of a cyanide spill that had polluted the Tisza River and 'devastated the livelihoods' of fishermen and chefs of Szeged's famous fish soup; there was an update on the ongoing debate, unresolved after a decade of legal mumbo jumbo in the Hague, about a dam on the Hungary-Slovakia border; and of course there was talk of more summits and of bright prospects for eternal peace next door in the once and future Yugoslavia." Or how about, "He took exception to the army's division of labor, and, as an intellectual exercise, even flirted with Marxism now and then, but had yet to consummate the relationship." All this, mind you, is in Brutus's perspective, his free indirect speech. If this sounds like the screenplay of "Blacula" to you, well, I can't help you. Perhaps Hanks is referring to some of the dialogue, such as "Me and the boyz will be moving into her house and there's a room for you when you come home. James put all your books in boxes and they're already over there in the basement up on some wooden pallets for when it floods."? But even this--the use of the slang "boyz" does little to conjure up the cartoonish stereotypes and funky soundtracks of the Blaxploitation genre; when slang is deployed here, it is generally strategic and understated.

Ervin's book isn't perfect so far; I find Brutus's voice to be less credible than Harkalyi's, for instance, less fully inhabited. And while Hanks takes issue with the book's structure, all he does is make light of the ambiguity as to whether it is a novel or short stories. A more worthwhile question to ask is whether the book might have been more effective if its storylines had been intertwined, if we shifted back and forth between them, drawing out the suspense and allowing the contrapuntal nature of its themes to hang in the air longer and with greater frequency. I'm not sure of the answer to this, but it would've been an interesting critical angle to pursue, rather than simply scoffing at the structure.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Holocaust remains one of the harshest examples of human brutality in history, and yet its history is still only partly known. Because the regions and peoples of Eastern Europe were all involved in different degrees, the experience is not simply defined. For example, a Jew in Russia may have had a completely different experience during this time period than a Jew in Warsaw or one in Hungary. Because of these differences, it's possible to read new accounts and catch new details that may be missed in another publication. All of them horrific, as the end usually remained the same no matter where they were from.

That's what made this novel especially unique: it's the first time I had ever heard of Terezin, in Czechoslovakia. It was a camp that served as a stop on the journey to the more deadly concentration camps. In all, more than two hundred thousand Jews are estimated to have been through Terezin and who eventually died*. However, this camp was unique in that it was designed to propogate the idea that Hitler was simply moving Jews to a nice location to wait out the storms of war. Films were made to show the happy Jews enjoying the orchestra and the fine foods and beautiful resort-like buildings. However, like a movie set, this was all a facade. Before filming, prisoners painted and revamped the buildings, potted flowers were brought in to add color, and inmates had to rehearse their smiles.

"For days, the filmmakers shot images of children playing soccer, of families sitting around large, food-laden tables, of citizens in line to deposit fake money at the town's newly built bank. The world would see the glorious gift the kaiser had given to the Jews-their own Edenic village, far from the devastation of the war."

Prior to filming, a symphony was prepared and practiced. Since many musicians were sent to Terezin especially because of their talent, the symphony appeared to be a chance for them to demonstrate their skills. The musicians were given new and stylish clothes to wear before they performed, while the potted plants in front of their chairs concealed their actual disintegrating shoes. It was a triumphant performance, and horrific in that as soon as the filming ended, the musicians were led off the stage into waiting traincars heading to Auschwitz, and their likely death. Adding to the poignancy was the conductor, a Jew himself, who had to choose which musicians were selected for this 'special' performance.

Sadly, for a long period of time the true horror of Terezin was hidden. Even Red Cross investigators inspected the camp and approved of the facility.

Andrew Ervin has used this factual history to compose his own triptych-like storypiece, one that reveals true historical details from Budapest, the military (both then and now), and the structure of orchestras and music. He begins with the fictional composer and violinist Harkalyi, one of the few children who had survived Terezin, now back in Budapest for a special celebration of his new composition. This new symphony is to him the final evolvement of his personal life, from Terezin to a spectacular career as a renowned musician. He's returned to Budapest to see his only living family member, his niece Magda.

In an intersecting story, Magda's boyfriend, a US soldier, is residing at the army base in Taszar, Hungary where she works on top-secret interrogations. His own experience in Budapest is another one of survival from oppressive injustice, and one that forces him to make a choice regarding his future. Finally, the last of the three stories is of Melanie, a musician set to play in the orchestra of the first performance of Harkalyi's new symphony. She's a violinist conflicted about her future and discovering how oppressive dissolution and indecision can be. She, too, finds transformation in Budapest.

The stories have a synchronicity to them because of their themes, and while the characters seek resolution, their path is never clear cut. Despite Harkalyi's tremendous suffering, he finds that his own niece is involved in the same sort of interrogation techniques of political prisoners at the base that he himself had suffered. He gives her a smooth stone, one given to him by his mother right before he was transported, and the last time he ever saw her. He's carried it his entire life as a symbol of his history, and as he passes it on to Magda, it's clear she doesn't grasp the significance of the token.

I really enjoyed the historical details of this novel. By far, the most fascinating part was about Harkalyi's life, and details of the fraud at Terezin, as well as his wish for his niece to understand her past. The middle story about Brutus, the soldier, lost me in the details of base life and seemed to be more of an indictment on military policy today rather a character portrayal, and I didn't see exactly how it fit the book as well as the other two stories around it. There seemed no purpose to his inclusion other than to set off on another story of human rights issues. The final story of Melanie, in the orchestra, is stronger and threads back to Harkalyi's own life. Additionally, the book served well as a jumping-off point for further research.


*http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/j...

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mosaic novel comprising three loosely linked novellas, the first and the last centered on the performance of a new opera in Budapest and the central -- and longest -- being one of the best pieces of noir fiction I've read in a while. In that central novella the sense of the novel's title is as in the delightful US practice of exporting torture to black sites; in the other two the "extraordinary renditions" are of pieces of music.

After decades of self-imposed exile, Harkalyi, a world-famous Hungarian composer who fled Europe on being liberated from a Nazi concentration camp, has returned to his native land for the grand premiere of his new opera. He finds a nation in turmoil, with bands of skinheads roaming the streets and beating up people whose color or lifestyle offends them. He also discovers that his niece, Magda, has a liaison function in one of the local US Army black sites -- which, so far as Harkalyi is concerned, means that the wheel is turning full circle, from one concentration camp to another.

This opening tale is desperately flawed (or, at least, it is in the ARC I read) by a bizarre use of tenses: essentially, the word "will" keeps getting used where the construction demands "would" or "was going to." It made my teeth grate every time. Since this oddity didn't occur in the other two novellas (except in a couple of instances in the third), it stuck me that perhaps it was an intentional echoing of Hungarian grammar. Since I know so very little about Magyar (this is a euphemism for "zero"), that wild guess of mine may well be baloney. If it's correct, though, then obviously this is a fiendishly clever lit'rary device, dash it, and not at all just plain fucking irritating, which was what I found it to be.

The central novella follows the fate of Brutus, a black soldier on the base who's subject to racism not just from the locals but from his fellow-soldiers; to add to his "sins" as a black man, he's highly intelligent and extremely literate. His only consolation is that one of the civilians on the base, Magda -- yes, Harkalyi's niece -- has entered into a secretive but passionate affair with him. And then a superior officer blackmails him into carrying to a pub in Budapest a cache of arms destined for IRA terrorists. Brutus knows that, whether or not he delivers the consignment, his number is basically up.

Brutus is a tremendous character, and I'd have happily spent far more time in his company. Here's one of his observations during his long, despairing flight across the city:

Upon closer inspection, Budapest wasn't all that different from Philly. . . . The only real difference was that everyone was white. It was like being at the opera.

The third novella focuses on Melanie, another superbly drawn character, a US expat who's one of the second violins in the grandly titled but in truth rather second-rate orchestra that's going to premiere Harkalyi's opera. Despite her lowly status within the orchestra, the score calls for her to deliver the work's concluding, definitive statement . . .

As will be obvious, the central novella is only tenuously linked to those that sandwich it: it's not at all important to the tale that Magda is Brutus's mistress or that (as we've already learned in the first piece) Harkalyi briefly encounters Brutus. There are, though, thematic links that bind the trio more firmly together -- not just that all three protagonists are US expats (despite Harkalyi's accident of birth) but that they're observing a recrudescent Hungary that's destroying itself through permitting fascism and its incestuous bedmate, racism, to flourish, ignoring the country's own relatively recent history in a pretense that this evil pair of isms don't devastate everything they touch. Of course, since Ervin wrote his novel things have gotten even worse there, the "nationalists" having succeeding in electing one of their own as the nation's leader.

Although I had difficulty with the tenses in the first novella, as noted, it still struck me as a damn' fine piece -- just a damn' fine piece crying out for some copyediting. The other two segments of Extraordinary Renditions, particularly the gripping central section, more than made up for the problems I'd had with the first. I'm very glad I persisted.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Mr. Ervin. I was drawn to this book for the cast of characters and had expected a slight, perhaps lacking Hungarian backdrop. Wrong I was. While the lives you so artfully created were riveting in their description, dialogue and interactions, the scenes you constructed brought me directly back to Budapest. I have had the wonderful opportunity to live in Hungary and visit this heart-wrenching city many times and your work has managed to capture it all. Gritty, romantic, brooding and moody; you had me walking down the same streets, experiencing the paths, and feeling the weight Budapest carries. As the setting took over the storyline for me I realized how each one of your characters echoed the characteristics of the city and how they were shaped by it as much as they were reflecting it. I truly enjoyed each page of your book and look forward to reading more.

[April · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just awful. I wouldn't recommend it anyone.

[West Hartford Public Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three very different lives converge in a single place at a point in time in a moving tribute to personal freedom. This story, set in Budapest, is Ervin's first novel.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 3.0 of 5

Three stories, intersecting in Budapest - a city with a long history, rich with culture.

In the first story, Lajos Harkályi, a world-famous composer and, more importantly, a Holocaust survivor, has returned to Budapest to perform his final work. This is, perhaps, the most personal of all his work as the musical theme is based on a lullaby his mother sang to him as he and his family were being forced to leave Hungary for the infamous concentration camp Terezín in Czechoslovakia.

The second story is of a United States Army private, Jonathan "Brutus" Gibson. Stationed at a base just outside of Budapest, Gibson, a Black soldier with the patience of Job, is being blackmailed by his commanding officer and must choose between his being used as a mule for the delivery for an illegal arms deal, or go AWOL. In the course of making his decision, he is set upon by a local skinhead gang.

Finally, the third story features Melanie Scholes, a young violinist who is to perform in a major new work by the famous composer Lajos Harkályi. But interfering with her attempt to take joy in this great honor is a failing relationship complete with blackmail and emotional abuse. How can this not affect her performance?

Author Andrew Ervin's writing is neat and clean with a constant feel of 'there's something big here' going on underneath it all. We can sense it, especially given the backgrounds of Holocaust survivor and soldier juxtaposed with music and art. Ervin keeps us on edge, hinting at the bigger themes.

Brutus Gibson's story seems most out of place here, and because of that, we're most curious how this fits in and, frankly, I'm not sure it does.

[SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER AHEAD] While Gibson's story does intersect with Harkályi's, and there's some correlation's to be made with the theme's of their stories, they feel SO different that I truly believed the third and final story would bring it all together, but it doesn't. This left me with quite a hollow feeling at the end - feeling as though the book didn't connect the dots that were laid before me.

As three individual stories, this is really nice. I enjoyed each piece, separately. As a 'novel' this doesn't work for me. The writing is nice, but the story lacks cohesion.

Looking for a good book? Extraordinary Renditions by Andrew Ervin is three stories, very loosely connected. The writing is solid and as stories, this works nicely. As a novel, it doesn't come together well enough.

[wally · Rating 3 out of 5]

finished yesterday 2nd july 2021 good read three stars i liked it kindle library loaner thought the title intriguing and maybe i read a synopsis before checking out first from ervin for me...but at moments i thought fashionable ideology and you can make of that what you will and you will. c'est la vie. but i thought the good sergeant black dude obsessed with "the man" seemed sketchy, at best. why? why the conclusions he came to? didn't see it justified in the story. hence my conclusion. i object to equating nazi concentration camps with the military prison in cuba. even if all it is...in this story...is an aside. we're told it is so, so we must believe it is so, verily, now and forevermore. well, no, don't tell me, show me. that doesn't happen.

all in all, good writing...though too thought it interesting how singularly focused through the eyes of each 3rd person we see the world. there is that fabled sense of alienation, as if it is not the character riding on the character's shoulder, looking at the world, but us on one shoulder and the character on the other, miscommunication.

what can you do?

[Carolyn Crocker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three Americans in Budapest-- a Holocaust survivor immigrant composer, an African American soldier, and a violinist adrift in the expat life-- learn what they need to give up to gain freedom. A CIA Black site, opera performance, wild improvisation are some of the many “extraordinary renditions” in the crisis of cultures on Hungarian Independence Day. Many thought-provoking ironies.

“There was no news, only reenactments of previous events, the cyclical return of war and famine and genocide, war and famine and genocied, interrupted by equally crude commercial advertisements. Only the longitudes changed, and now it was the Americans who put men in concentratin camps. Harkalyi, to his regret, will not livelong enough to hear the music composed in Guantanamo, or in the secretive black sites speckled like cancerous moles on Europe’s backside.” p. 45

[KayG · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was made up of three interrelated sections, and I had quite distinct feelings about each part.

I loved the first section, the 14 Bagatelles, which tells a poignant story of a Jewish composer who was sent as a child to the Theresienstadt concentration camp during WWII. As an elderly man, he returns to Budapest for the premier of his opera. His story is very moving, and the sense of place is vivid.

In the second section, an African American U.S. soldier deals with racism and cruelty. The violence in this section made it difficult for me. This was related to the first story, but it had an entirely different feel to it.

The third section moves back to music and the premier of the composer’s opera. It was an interesting look at performance, personality, and the subject of the opera, foot binding.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't love this book, but I did respect it. The stories and characters are deep and intriguing, but the prose was tough for me to work through. It was just a bit too thick, and the progress a bit too slow, for me to really connect strongly. Probably not the best time to read this book for me! The last few months, I haven't really read at all, and I think I lost a lot of the focus that would have been handy when reading Extraordinary Renditions. Maybe I'll revisit it again after I've regained some intellect!

[Kelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

*SLIGHT SPOILER*
I have no idea why I selected this book - maybe it was the car on the cover?! But once started I didn't want to stop and when I'd put it down it stayed in my mind and I'd be anxious to get back to it.
The three sections seem very different and yet interestingly connected. Brutus was definitely my favorite - the paranoia he went thru, the surprising ending, WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? I'll be wondering .....

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

All About Budapest

Andrew Ervin's "Extraordinary Renditions" is a look at three different lives intersecting in Budapest -- a Jewish composer, a black American soldier, and expat violinist. They have all chosen paths that lead to unpredictable outcomes. Ervin also presents an interesting view of the Hungarian capital.

[Lana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started a little too slowly for me. Couldn't get into it so it wasn't for me. For others I think this would be a great read.

[Marisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is full of sensory-rich descriptions that brought me right back to my time in Hungary. I liked all three stories and left me thinking of each character's future.

[Pavol Hardos · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this book, three interconnected stories, all taking place in and around Budapest. Yet I was profoundly disappointed and stopped reading about half-way in, owing mostly to the truly terrible, terrible writing hoisted upon us in the second story. But first things first.

The first story was about a Holocaust-surviving composer, returning to his hometown for the premiere of his latest work, his most personal and final work, an opera where the central theme was based on a lullaby his long-dead mother taught him and that's been with him ever since. I lived in Budapest for 4 years, so as he wanders around Budapest I wandered with him, all giddy and elated at the recognition of the places he visits. Though already I registered a slight unease, as I followed his nightly sojourn on my mental map of Budapest, and I kept thinking, what a sprightly fellow, covering such distances on foot, at his age no less.

But where the first story offered nice writing, and a profound sense of loss and sadness, the second was a mess, misfiring on all cylinders, a full-blown catastrophe. Here now we have a caricature of an "angry negro", a soldier at an US army base near Budapest who is about as believable as a zombie unicorn. In fact, the author might have been more successful at describing the inner life of his character if he actually made him a zombie unicorn. The story itself is as delicately thought through as a Hallmark special. A soldier is being black-mailed, never mind the preposterous nature as to how, by his superior, to deliver some guns to a black-market somewhere in Budapest. In the meantime, we have to suffer through his mental thought processes, in all their Holden-Caulfieldesque narcissistic glory, his paranoid delusions of grandeur and ham-fisted ideology, all about as a smoothly rendered, convincing and believable as applying a hammer to the forehead. Embarrassing and off-putting. The worst thing is that the writing itself turns inexplicably terrible, and I genuinely struggled to barge ahead, until I could take it no more, and when our poor, paranoid Brutus walks past some stray dogs "which he avoided", I decided to do likewise.

I can't say much about the third story, but whatever its merits, it sure wasn't worth getting to by suffering through this mess.

[Marian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this very much - about 60% of the book takes place in the neighborhood where I lived for nearly 3 years, and the bar which figures significantly in the plot would have been right around the corner where I lived (where it's supposed to be was an empty storefront the entire time I lived in the neighborhood). But it reflects poorly on the author that the plot and language weren't strong enough for me to not get distracted by the book's many geographic and linguistic inaccuracies (just to name two, Katona Jozsef u. 1 is near Nyugati, not near the Duna, and if a fluent Hungarian speaker were ordering two cappucinos, the correct form would be "ket cappucinot", which is pretty much Hungarian 101. But there are quite a few others, though I can accept that the city most likely changed between 2001-ish, when Ervin clearly lived in Budapest, and 2009, when I moved there).

I did enjoy the first segment, about a Hungarian Jewish composer returning home to Budapest for the first time since WWII, whose career success seems to be loosely based on Gorecki's, and a little bit less the third, about a fairly silly American expatriate violinist with a significant role in the composer's new opera. The second segment didn't work as well for me, mostly because it felt a bit dodgy for a white guy from the Philadelphia suburbs to try to get into the mind of a Black man who grew up in the inner city. Some of the themes were a bit ham-fisted for my tastes, but I do appreciate an ambitious novel. In the end I liked the book mostly for its evocation of a city I love and miss very much - it's one of the few depictions of Budapest in literature that I think really captures the expat's view of the city (especially the weather in the winter, my god. Prague by Arthur Phillips does to some extent, but in a very different historical era).

As a final note the university where I worked is described as "the personal propaganda ministry of a well-known Hungarian billionaire work profiteer." hilarious.

[Sophie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this more as there are so few books set in Budapest. The book is split into three parts: the first is the story of a world-famous Hungarian Jewish composer who was sent to Terezin concentration camp during WWII and now in his old age has returned to Budapest to have his new opera performed. The second story follows a black soldier from Philadelphia who works on a military base outside Budapest and is being blackmailed by his commander. The third story is of a young American violinist in Budapest who has realised that her relationship with her photographer girlfriend is going nowhere.

The stories cover roughly the day, and intersect rather cleverly for the most part. I actually really enjoyed the first story, but characters in the second and third parts didn't grab me in the same way, and I found it hard to care what happened to them. Despite being set in Budapest, the Hungarian characters are peripheral and stereotypical - a dodgy taxi driver, an awful conductor who refuses to promote the violinist because she is American, a Eurotrash hairdresser, a bunch of Neonazi skinheads, an old lady selling flowers in the underground. The references to how run-down, dirty, smelly, polluted and crime-ridden Budapest is abound, which is fair enough and possibly the author (who lived there) experienced the city like that, but I was a little disappointed as Budapest is to me such a beautiful and interesting city.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

p.52-53
While lethargy and apathy and incomprehension demagnetized the globe's moral compass, bodies continued to burn in the distance, the smoke rising to obscure the light of two million stars, still twinkling bright yellow, though already dead.
p.57
The orchestra had started to warm up, to arrive at a shared tuning. To Harklayi, the cacophony was gorgeous, like a summer meteor shower dripping from the heavens. There were sounds, often from the reeds and winds, that some listeners would consider unappealing, but in reality no awful voices truly existed--not even his brother's. The pre-musical chaos contained something honest, even truer than the manicured tones that would follow; it was music in the raw, free of false order, of linearity, and for that reason was ignored by the audience as if it were white noise. It was his favorite part of every concert. Colors and patterns of sound swirled forth...

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

A series of three loosely linked novellas about American expats in Budapest. The first one, a story of a famous composer returning to his homeland many years after spending his youth in a concentration camp, is the slowest/weakest and took me several attempts to get into. I was contemplating putting this down, but thought I'd give the second story a go and I ended up tearing reading the rest of the book in one shot. The second story concerns a the plight of an African American solider stationed in Hungary and the third is about a female musician in the Hungarian orchestra. Those two stories were very good, if you can get through the slog of the first novella.

[Tyler McGaughey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely a first novel, flawed and ambitious but engaging throughout. I found the final tying-up of the "Strange Fruit"/'black bodies swaying' motif a little trite, and Ervin would have been helped by some editing at the sentence and paragraph level. What kept me reading was the indelible sense of place this book conjures up, for me one of the chief pleasures of fiction. I'm not sure I would have reacted as strongly or as positively as I did had the places, smells, textures, words, etc, of Hungary not been things I personally experienced, albeit briefly and, in hindsight, childishly.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book #10 from The Little Free Library: This books tells 3 different stories, each revolving around an American in Budapest. Each story on it's own was fairly strong and interesting, but the thin threads tying them together left me wishing they had remained separate in order to expand on each story. I would rate this 3.5 stars, going lower than I anticipated mainly because it was a struggle to pick this book up time and time again, even while I recognized it was written well. I found myself reading to get to the big build up, and when it didn't arrive it was hard to continue.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

If this book had a different second section, it would have been much better. The first part and the third part fit so much better together, and the second part is a piece of dissonance in an otherwise lovely novel (though there are other parts in the novel that clearly show the author's agenda and create some serious problems--I, for one, have a hard time believing that a Holocaust survivor would compare Guantanamo Bay to a concentration camp).

[L · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is written in the form of three loosely connected novellas, all set in Budapest on the same day. I really enjoyed the interplay among the three stories, from the intersecting lives of the three main characters to the multiple perspectives given to the cast of extras. Although intended to be short, the characters are given enough substance that I wish I could have read more of them before the pages ran out.

[Tom]

I was about 40% through the book, and really liking it, until I somehow, inexplicably, lost it in a parking lot (I'm thinking outside the DMV), and so will have to put this on hold until next time I get to a good bookshop (and/or order online, depending), which is dispiriting, although good news for A. Ervin, who now gets two sales to me!