Yesterday

An immigrant from an unnamed country wrestles with despair in this spare and haunting novel from Kristóf (1935–2011), who is perhaps best known for her trilogy: The Notebook, The Proof, and The Third Lie. Raised in poverty, Tobias Horvath flees his native land as a teenager after committing what he believes to be a terrible crime. He reinvents himself as the war orphan Sandor Lester. At 26, Sandor has spent a decade working a monotonous, unfulfilling job at a clockwork factory; he’s involved in a loveless relationship with Yolande, and spends his evenings writing or socializing with a group of other refugees and immigrants from his country. But he grows sick of this “idiotic routine,” and his only ambition is to meet Line, an idealized version of a girl he knew in childhood. When he reencounters Line in his new country, Sandor is certain she will be his “wife, love, life” and his “days at the factory [will] become days of joy.” But the real-life Line already has a husband and child, and Sandor’s fantasies run into the obstacle of reality. Alternating between dreamlike passages that may be Sandor’s writing, and the bleak account of his days, the novel offers a lucid, poignant narrative of the struggle to find meaning in a world of “unbearable waiting and... inexpressible silence.” (Sept.)