The book proclaims itself a novel so I will call it that although I am not entirely sure that I would otherwise call it so. It contains 2 stories: "Artur and Isabella" and "Pupi" and the connection between them is almost irrelevant - there is one but the stories work without it and it is not strong enough to carry the novel as such (but then a lot of modern novels seem to be like that). In addition to all that, the English publishers (first Istros Books in UK and then New Dimensions in the States) ended up with different translators for both stories - Curtis for "Artur and Isabella" and Celia Hawkesworth for "Pupi" (or so the copyright credits say). The styles of the two stories are different - and I am not entirely sure how much of that different was an author choice and how much came from the different translators.

The first one (which is the shorter one and the better one) introduces us to two old people in their late 70s, meeting in the last day of 1999 by chance . They end up almost having an affair (or does it count as one?), sharing a few of the chocolates that she collects but they mostly talk. Their pasts cover most of the century and with Isabella having fled Germany ahead of the camps and Artur being obsessed with hats, they have a lot to remember. Except that we do not get all of their story from these conversations - because between the paragraphs of the story, it turns out that they both had been monitored and investigated by the police - for different reasons - and we learn the story they do not want to tell each other from these report. The end of the story is told via 2 newspaper articles and I'd admit I did not see it coming.

The second story, "Pupi" is told in a more traditional style. It is also longer but I think that is to its disadvantage - it gets rambling in places. An aging man decides to make amends for his family's criminal past by returning some articles to a Jewish family. While that is happening, he collects useless facts and makes lists (just as Artur did in the first part thus creating one more connection between the two parts), reminisces about his past and his choices in life and have a never explained fascination with the rhinos in the local zoo. I am sure I missed something in this second story - it got me almost glassy-eyed a few times.

At the end it is a book about history and connections and life itself. We meet people at their lowest time - and get to see them at the end of lives full of regrets (and some joy). It is a depressing book - in more than one way. It was also my introduction to the author. According to some reports online, that was her favorite of her novels. It will probably work better for someone who likes modern literature styles a bit more than I do though. ( )