The Storyteller: Memory, Secrets, Magic and Lies

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

Anna Porter moved to New Zealand after the 1956 Revolution and to Canada
in 1969. Now a respected Canadian publisher (Key Porter Books), she is
also the author of three crime novels.

This very personal story of Porter’s ancestral family sweeps over 75
years of events in 20th-century Hungary. The storyteller is Anna’s
beloved grandfather, Vili Rаcz, patriot and prisoner, philanderer and
devoted family man.

Vili’s stories centre on the chaotic years of World War II, the
postwar Hungarian Revolution in the mid-1950s, and the family’s exile
to New Zealand. Anna’s memories include the prison hardships of her
mother, the prison labor of her unjustly sentenced grandfather, and the
terrible loss of human life that took place in the streets of Budapest
during the failed uprising against the Communists. Grandfather’s
stories shape her values and her understanding of Hungarian

history.

The Storyteller uses dialogue effectively and reads like a novel. The
events are dramatic and often harrowing as they sweep over the chaotic
history of mid-century Eastern Europe. Anna’s memories hold pleasure
and pain. For readers who have always lived in peace, the book may open
eyes, while new Canadians could find echoes of their own earlier
experiences in other lands.