Birds of Passage

Peter Roberts is a former Canadian Ambassador to the Soviet Union and
author of George Costakis: A Russian Life in Art.

This novel, the author’s first, is blessed with well-developed
characters, good dialogue, and a strong sense of place. Post-Communist
Budapest comes across vividly in all its confusion, venality, and
frequent misery. But there is far too much crammed into these 238 pages.


Half-a-dozen stories weave their way in and out of the main narrative,
which centres on an English-language theatre in Budapest and the people
who put on its plays. The heroine (a Canadian) and the hero (a
Hungarian) are themselves only on the fringe of the theatre. Around them
is a confusing tapestry of subjects—Hungarian/Canadian politics,
theatre and art, the Hungarian drug trade, and the seamy side of
Hungarian society. There is enough material here to have seen Leith
through her next two or three novels.