Midnight Train to Prague

In Windley’s enthralling epic (after the collection Breathing Under Water), a chance meeting on a train leads to a bond between two women decades later. Fourteen-year-old Natalia Faber and her mother, Beatriz, leave their home near Berlin in 1927 to visit a spa in Hungary. Natalia watches a man dying on their train as a young doctor, Magdalena Schaefferova, tries to save him. While staying at the spa, Beatriz meets Miklós Andorján, a budding journalist, and the next year they are married. In 1942, Miklós goes east to Russia on an assignment, and Natalia goes to Prague to find him. While in Prague, Natalia makes a meager living telling fortunes, gets reacquainted with Magdalena, and meets Magdalena’s daughter, Anna, before Natalia is sent to a concentration camp as a political prisoner. After her camp is liberated, Natalia reunites with Anna and continues the search for Miklós, while Anna reckons with the effects of the war on her own family. The author skillfully conveys the political and social upheaval in WWII-era Europe through the perspectives of journalists, soldiers, and doctors. Fans of WWII fiction will appreciate this accomplished take. (Nov.)