The Graveyard

Description

This is a gritty tale about Communist Poland from one of the original 'Angry Young Men' Marek Hlasko. When Party member Franciszek Kowalski drunkenly insults a police man, his outburst is taken as criticism of the government, and he is both arrested and expelled from the Party. Kowalski, a true believer, attempts to rehabilitate himself by gathering testimonies from the men he fought alongside as an anti-Nazi partisan in the People's Army; but each meeting with his former comrades takes him further down into the underworld that has been there all along.

Marek H_x0142_asko (1934-1969) was born in Warsaw, the only child of parents who divorced when he was three. He was kicked out of high school and worked a series of menial jobs. While a truck driver, he began to write articles for a local newspaper, and soon after joined the crusading magazine Po Prostu as the editor of the literary section. In 1956, his short story collection A First Step in the Clouds won him immediate acclaim. It was followed by The Eighth Day of the Week, and two other novels, The Graveyard and Next Stop-Paradise. But when publishers refused to bring out his books, H_x0142_asko traveled to Paris and published them in the emigre journal Kultura. It was a fateful decision- the Polish authorities gave him the choice of returning home and renouncing his work or staying abroad forever. He chose the latter, and spent the rest of his life in Western Europe, Israel, and the United States. He developed a reputation as a hard drinker and brawler, and was often in and out of prisons and psychiatric clinics. In 1966, Roman Polanski brought H_x0142_asko to Hollywood to work as a screenwriter, but while there, he got into a fight with the composer Krzysztof Komeda, who died from his injuries a few days later. Six months afterward, H_x0142_asko died from a fatal mixture of alcohol and sleeping pills. He was thirty-five years old and the author of ten novels, several collections of short stories and essays, and a memoir. Norbert Guterman (1900-1984) also translated H_x0142_asko's The Eighth Day of the Week and Next Stop-Paradise. James Sallis is the author of Drive and the Lew Griffin series of crime novels, among many other books.

"A spokesman for those who were angry and beat, turbulent, temperamental and tortured . . . In The Graveyard, Hlasko stabs his knife into the regime and draws it out dripping blood." -The New York Times "Hlasko's story comes off the page at you like a pit bull." -The Washington Post "Marek Hlasko lived through what he wrote and died of an overdose of solitude and not enough love." -Jerzy Kosinski "A self-taught writer with an uncanny gift for narrative and dialogue . . . A born rebel and troublemaker of immense charm." -Roman Polanski "Hlasko writes with great talent . . . Fascinates the reader with his conciseness, directness, and drama." -Saturday Review "As a study of a peculiar limbo, the endless wandering, the alienation, [The Eighth Day of the Week is] exquisitely drawn, and intensely young; it's about as good a description of being 18 as I've ever read, whether you're living under the yoke of communism or not." -Zoe Williams, The Guardian, "The Book That Changed Me" "While urging you to find and read . . . any book by Marek Hlasko, I will yield to Hlasko's countryman, fellow writer, and friend Leopold Tyrmand, the final word: 'Even in his lies-and he was a man built of lies, some of them scurrilous, some of them charming-he conveyed always a truth. A truth we need.' " -James Sallis, The Boston Globe