This book contained two sets of short stories -- well, anecdotes -- set in the same village and centring around the same family, but about ten years or so apart. The first cycle deals with the exploits of Maryska, the village’s brewer’s wife, whose unconventional (for the time) and unencumbered approach to the joys of life make her quite the character in pre-war Bohemia. The second set of stories/anecdotes deals with her son, age ten or so, who wanders around the village and sees it slowly adjusting as the Soviet occupation and the associated power structure changes intensify and leave ever clearer marks.

I wouldn’t call this a novel -- the structure is too loose for that. These are collections of bar yarns, stories of the do-you-know-what-so-and-so-did-the-other-day variety. As such, they are very good at drawing you in and making you feel as though you are one of the locals gossiping about a neighbour. The yarns also abide by the adage that a joke is not funny unless someone gets hurt. Case in point, one of the stories features a ten-year-old boy who wants a chest tattoo of a little boat when he sees dockworkers’ manly chests full of ships, anchors, mermaids and the like. Because the kid is an altar boy, he has the opportunity to steal money from the collection plate to pay the local tattoo artist, who promptly inks a big-breasted mermaid onto him.

These were enjoyable tales of family life in a sleepy village, against a background of post-war Czechia undergoing societal changes that slowly take their toll. ( )