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REVIEWS BY:
Eva Kende
Michael Larocca
'Konyvesevike'
Eva Kende is best known for her excellent books on cooking (Eva's Hungarian Kitchen and Eva's Kitchen Confidence), but she is also the author of an autobiographical short story collection, Snapshots - Growing up behind the Iron Curtain, which overlaps in time and place with my book. She is a retired biochemist living in the Canadian Rockies in Canmore, Alberta with her husband John. She was born in Budapest in 1941 and came to Canada as a refugee in 1957, after the Hungarian revolution.When she found out about Anikó: The stranger who loved me, she was incredibly helpful about correcting minor mistakes of fact and providing feedback about details such as street names. She also wrote the following:
I never believed in cemeteries or headstones. I remember my deceased loved ones in odd places that I associate with their life or their achievements instead. A gay café for one, a clump of bushes on a street corner for another one and a restored house for another serves as my way of paying my respects. Bob Rich, the author of Aniko, did one better, he erected a monument to his mother in the form of a book. A monument he invites the world to share. In reading the tale of Aniko, while one is conscious of the pain the author's must feel, he skillfully pushes it out of the way to tell the story of an extraordinary woman that happened to be his mother. Aniko is a woman of strength, courage, determination with lots of soft feminine love in her heart. She uses these attributes to survive, to prosper and to the benefit of her family. Bob's writing style brings to life Aniko and the city of Budapest in an era that I know well from my personal life. I could see the places, feel the atmosphere, hear the sounds and, from time to time, I imagined that I could even smell the odors emanating from the buildings as I passed them. Not only the setting is authentic, but the problems Aniko must face and conquer are familiar. I sat on the edge of my chair throughout the book wondering how she will deal with one adversity after another.
Aniko is a riveting book, inspiring and that I recommend highly.
Michael is a talented editor and writer with multiple publications. He publishes a widely circulated e-zine Who Moved My Rice?.
ANIKO: THE STRANGER WHO LOVED ME
A biography by Dr. Bob Rich
EPPIE 2004 Winner
Reviewed by Michael LaRocca, author of RISING FROM THE ASHES
"This book is a tribute to a remarkable woman who managed the impossible more than once. Her story is worth the telling." These words come from Dr. Bob Rich's prologue. And he is absolutely right.
Aniko Stern was a Hungarian Jew. Through her story, we are transported to a time and place that may be no more to us than a few words in a history book. But that's only the beginning of ANIKO. The war only lasted a few years. It simply seems longer because of its aftermath.
This book contains so much more than that. Real people faced with real decisions. An intelligent, determined woman who is able to do much more than struggle to survive, and who could never be content as a simple housewife. I've met and admired such women all my life. Bob has given me one more.
When Aniko dares to love again, we see a side of single parenthood that I honestly wasn't aware existed, brought powerfully to life by the masterful writing of Dr. Bob Rich.
I've read several of Bob's short story collections, so I already knew that he was a chameleon, adopting different personas, view-points and attitudes as his stories required. But it's even more amazing to see in the course of a single book, a story spanning decades and told through the eyes of a number of different people.
Aniko's business acumen reminded me of my own mother. Very strong "people skills," which are equally useful in post-war Hungary or 1960s North Carolina. Or, in fact, anywhere at any time.
That's something I really got from this book. As I said before, real people living real life. Things you can identify with, things you can learn from, things that will inspire you to think of things that the author may have never intended. Life is like that.
In the predictable boilerplate "novel," you can only think in one direction while you read. It's the one the author leads you along by the nose. But a genuine author gives you literature. A recreation of life so real that five different readers can come from the experience with five different experiences, all equally valid.
By that standard, ANIKO is definitely literature. I am grateful that Bob chose to share his mother's story with us, and it is a story that I will read again. That's the highest praise you can get out of me.
A Canadian lady of Hungarian origins bought my book Anikó: The stranger who loved me. This was the first e-book she'd ever read, but she's been back to buy Sleeper, Awake. Here is in extract of what she thought of Anikó
I recently finished reading Dr. Bob Rich's incredible book about his mom, Aniko, and the hardships they all went through during the Nazi persecution. It presents a detailed emotional torture that his entire family went through. The only other book I have ever read on the subject of anti-semetism was "The Diary Of Ann Frank" which was a compulsory read in my high school years. Their entire experience is very unreal to one unless one has gone through it oneself. To me especially it is a very outside experience...
Too bad I didn't know of the addresses Dr. Rich mentions in his book when I went to Budapest over a year ago so I could have looked them up. If you want to read a touching book on a mother's struggles, fear and love for her family, and all that she is capable of, as well as Dr. Bob's own childhood horrors and struggles, then definitely this book is a must.
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