Marek Torčík

At 3.37 a.m., the telephone awakened the novel’s protagonist, and a late-night call from his mother stirs the surface of his memories. It takes him back to his teenage years in the Moravian town of Přerov, to the experiences of a homosexual boy growing up in a conservative industrial town, in a family where money is scarce. What appears is an environment that punishes being different. The protagonist literally unfolds his memories, like looking at old photographs and searching for small details that often reveal more than what is evident at first glance. He talks about his mother, father, and grandfather, about bullying, alcoholism, or coping with a different sexual orientation. He breaks down not only his own memories into individual fragments but also a kind of the whole family´s collective memory.

Published by Paseka, 2023