cover image Maribor Remembered

Maribor Remembered

Paul H. Laric. Todd & Honeywell, $9.94 (128pp) ISBN 978-0-89962-751-9

Pete Kovar, the protagonist of this unassuming first novel, is a middle-aged, happily-married writer who has lived in New York since his family left their home in Maribor, Yugoslavia, on the eve of German occupation, when he was 14. After watching the Sarajevo Olympics, Pete decides to visit his homeland with his wife, Dani, and their Lhasa Apso, Kim. His fond memories of the people and places he knew as a child are tempered by 40 years of change. Pete missed the war, but Maribor didn't. His boyhood friend, Tomi, a partisan with the Resistance, is one of those who died. The story of Tomi's death doesn't make sense to Paul, and during the course of his visit, the truth gradually emerges. Laric's folksy prose is often trite, and his too-cute-for-words dog can be trying. But there is marvelous local color in Laric's descriptions of contemporary Yugoslaviaparticularly its cities, countryside, food and drinkand he conveys the manners and protocol of interrupted friendship with seasoned understanding. (Nov.)