"Páral masterfully switches from farce to drama and back again, so that
in the end we feel Jost's dilemma even as we're laughing at him."
—New York Times Book Review"A middle-European, existential account of the sexual revolution as seen from behind an irony curtain
– very funny, erotic, and disturbing."
—Chicago Tribune"[B]lack humor at its best."
—Publishers Weekly
This twist on the Don Juan story looks at the attractions and difficulties of freedom. In the course of his commute, Jacek Jost is suddenly catapulted out of his daily routine into a world of infinite opportunities. Although written in the 1960s, Catapult remains the greatest novel about the Velvet Revolution, that is, about newfound freedom.
$10.95 paper, 240 pages, ISBN 0-945774-17-6.
Order from your local bookstore via Book Sense
Lenka and Lenicka were coming down Revolution Avenue, we can see each other from a distance, but Lenka doesn't run to meet me the way Verka does with Petrík, this is only my first, every fifth Czech is divorced and there are twenty thousand divorces a year, why on earth do we remember the statistics anyway, Lenka's caught sight of us, but she's more interested in that display of knitted goods, the little darling sees her Daddy but runs away, Daddy would be more likely than Mommy to buy her some ice cream, but you like Mommy better-
Lenka looks old for her twenty-eight years, she no longer likes to talk in bed, she'd rather sleep, how frightened she was yesterday-watching TV she suddenly jumped up and ran to the bathroom, it happens more and more often, and then that thief-like crawling into the next bed, as if begging for mercy-please don't-
"Did you bring the money?"
Let's concede that's all that matters to you and the court will determine precisely how much, for three hundred crowns a new life, pass by this indifferent wife and child who, in a year, won't even recognize us, and go back along Revolution Avenue in the opposite direction, free to take off-
"Daddy swing me like an angel-" Lenicka called, Lenka took her by one arm and Jacek by the other, they raised her up and, swinging her feet, the little girl soared into the sky.
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