The Year of the Frog

Simecka, the son of a prominent Czechoslovakian dissident, draws on his own past for an extraordinarily rich and compelling first novel about life during the last years of communism before the Velvet Revolution. What makes this winner of the 1992 Pegasus Prize for Literature unique is the dizzying array of experiences the author has captured, from the aimless existence of young intellectuals capriciously excluded from participation in cultural life to the daily drudgery of workers. The narrator, a young intellectual in Bratislava named Milan, is in limbo. Because his father is serving a prison sentence for dissident activities, he may not enroll in the university and therefore is ineligible for any job that requires a degree. Since by law he must be employed, Milan takes a succession of posts: as a hospital orderly assisting in brain operations, then later with abortions; and as a clerk in a hardware store. Through the years, he dreams of becoming a writer and indulges his two passions, long-distance running and his love for the beautiful Tania, whom he eventually marries and betrays. The novel's exploration of a sensitive, ethical young man's coming of age is enriched by haunting descriptions of everyday life that reveal medical incompetence and corruption, bureaucratic favoritism and the dashed hopes of Milan's friends and colleagues. These simple, effective passages are a chilling indictment of the communist experiment. Author tour. (Oct.)