Book of the Month: A Long, Long Time Ago & Essentially True, by Brigid Pasulka

Every country presents itself to us in layers. As travelers, we usually apprehend the visual layer first—landscape, architecture, dress. Then, over time, we begin to absorb the layers of history and culture, tradition and belief. One of the many gifts of Brigid Pasulka's debut novel, A Long, Long Time Ago & Essentially True, is that it transports us through the outer layers straight into the heart of Poland, brilliantly evoking the country's emotional landscape.

Pasulka's narrative masterfully braids two stories: The first begins on the eve of World War II in the mountain hamlet of Half-Village, and centers on a resolute young man nicknamed the Pigeon and the beautiful young woman he falls in love with, Anielica Hetmanska; the second follows their granddaughter, Beata, in Krakow in the 1990s, where she has gone to make a new life with her crusty cousin Irena and Irena's modish daughter, Magda, after the death of her beloved grandmother.

Unfolding with an accumulating fairy-tale ferocity, the story of Pigeon and Anielica illuminates the hard ways of country life, where houses are hand-constructed with rocks and trees from nearby woods, backcountry gossip confers its own life-changing consequences, and when German troops arrive, unshakeable bonds ensure survival.

Beata's story reveals the New Poland of cafés, clubs, and brand boutiques, where Germans come as tourists and the openings of a McDonald's and a Japanese cultural center signal the advent of a global dawn. At the same time, as she discovers in her wanderings, the past endures in the milk bars and vegetable markets of the city's shabbier quarters—and closer to home as well.

Pasulka poignantly portrays Poland's checkerboard history in the latter half of the 20th century and the evolution of its national character under Nazi occupation, Soviet Communism, and post-Soviet capitalism. With a passion for Poland that suffuses each page, A Long, Long Time Ago & Essentially True rings hauntingly, enchantingly, real.