Ideal for singalongs at nursing homes, senior residences or just at your own home. Bound in a loose-leaf binder of durable vinyl, unsnaps for access to pages. (To see a photo of the book, click 
Memories of the East
I fell in and out of sleep on my father’s shoulders and woke from one dreamy interlude to the sound of dogs barking. . .
The scene is Eastern Europe — the old Yugoslavia, to be precise — and the Varga family is fleeing west to Austria. It’s part of the narrative in the novel Sniper in the Mist, Chapter 2, which we present today in our fiction section.
It’s also drawn from the life of the author, Joseph Cigan, whose family made a similar escape to freedom in the 1950s when he was just a small child.
Father accelerated the pace to a double-time trot, pulling my now-exhausted mother by the sleeve of her long overcoat. We were crossing a field recently harvested with corn stalks vertically stacked in a circle against each other forming teepee-like cones scattered haphazardly in our path. My father stopped abruptly at one and, shifting some stalks to reveal the hollow space within, urged my mother to enter. He set the suitcase and me on the ground, entered the corn shelter pulling both in behind him and arranged the stalks to partially cover the entrance. Mother sat cross-legged with my sister in lap as the barking of the dogs gained in volume. . .
Those memories don’t fade. And the way Cigan writes about them, although in fiction, gives them a vividness that makes them real.
That’s not the only memory of the East that comes through the work of this Hungarian-American author. He also writes about his ethnicity with a freshness imbued with both poetry and logic found only in the best writers of any heritage:
Hungarians are an Asian people. Usually, I prefer the term ‘Oriental’ instead of the more politically correct ‘Asian.’ Notwithstanding the likelihood that the genesis of our use of ‘Oriental’ is firmly rooted in a cultural elitism manifest in the Eurocentric orientation of our compass, the Orient is undeniably to the east. It can also be argued, for that matter, that it is to the west, although it would require a much longer argument. Asian, although general, is still somehow too specific geographically. Oriental is much less defining and more intriguing, the difference, perhaps, between the earthy flavor of a dark roasted Arabica coffee and the ephemeral perfume of a Japanese green tea. Hungarians, though, are definitely Asian. Wild Scythian winds from the steppes of Central Asia tore the back door to Europe from its hinges, and howling through on their wiry overachieving ponies rode Attila the Hun and Arpad the Magyar.
This quality of writing is why, as we explained in our previous entry, we decided to serialize Cigan’s novel, his first. Again, as we explained, it’s not yet finished. We know at least eight or nine chapters are complete, but who knows where the book goes from there?
We just don’t care. We think what Cigan has written so far is well worth reading, and we’ve signed on for the ride.
We see Attila and Arpad, and we hope you do, too.
– Sid Leavitt
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March 11, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Just read the first chapter … beautiful, rambling, poetic … Prose in the style of Dennis LeHane of “Mystic River” and “Gone, Baby, Gone” fame…
What irks me, though, is that this isn’t something I want to look at on an LCD monitor; I want to hold this as I lie on the couch, or in bed next to my wife, and be able to turn pages, feel the weight of the tome and its promise of words yet unread.
March 12, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Exactly, Steve. In fact, we said much the same in our Feb. 24 entry about Ray Rhamey’s novel We the Enemy, an e-book that we read on a computer screen.
For the reasons you cite and others, there’s still a great need for print publishing. Another book we hope gets published on paper is your The Unearthing.
March 12, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Actually, The Unearthing is available as a print book — however, because I’m an independent author, the major book stores won’t stock it on their shelves.
The online stores, however, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, et al., have made it available, though you kind of have to dig for it.
I hope Joseph finds a publisher, too … and I hope that the major retailers start waking up to the fact that the “legitimate” houses aren’t the ones dispensing literature, anymore.
March 13, 2008 at 12:11 am
Well said, Steve. And thanks for clarifying that The Unearthing is available in print. I guess I knew that after visiting the Amazon website and seeing a print version of the book. But I didn’t remember that when I made the comment above.
In fact, for our other readers, here’s the link I followed to find the print version.