Lázár

An aristocratic Hungarian family copes with cascading trauma over three generations and two world wars in the extraordinary English-language debut from Swiss writer Biedermann. The gothic-tinged story begins at the turn of the 20th century, with the birth of Lajos von Lázár. Lajos’s mother, Maria, was impregnated by the family’s horse groom, Pál, a fact she keeps secret from her husband, Sándor, a baron who, along with Lajos’s six-year-old sister, Ilona, is repulsed by Lajos’s “translucent” skin, which reveals his internal organs. Pál dies in an accident shortly after Lajos is born, and Maria slips into a deep depression and dies by suicide when Lajos and Ilona are in their teens. Sándor sends the children to a Catholic boarding school on the eve of WWI, where Lajos, a sensitive and impressionable child, is sexually assaulted by another boy. After the war, Lajos marries and inherits Sándor’s title and land after he dies from falling during a drunken stupor. The couple’s two children come of age on the eve of WWII, which brings on waves of upheaval and loss during German occupation followed by Hungary’s turn to communism after the war. Biedermann artfully weaves surreal images and dramatic irony into the family tragedy, as when preteen Lajos fantasizes about escaping his life by sailing on the Titanic, only to feel “as if he himself had drowned” when he hears that it sank. This is a marvel. Agent: Marc Koralnik, Liepman Literary. (Apr.)