Croatian-born author Novakovich infuses this 11-story collection (April Fool's Day
; Yolk
) with a strong sense that God never revisits the past. The only thing that changes is the grip our memory has on the past—or it has on us. In "A Bridge Under the Danube," an elderly Serb couple, Milka and Drago Zivkovic, are driven from their home in Croatia to the Serb city of Novi Sad in a round of ethnic cleansing. There, they cling to their last possession, their faith, even as NATO bombs the city. "A Purple Story," a masterly blend of reflection and horrifying farce, details a man's dashed hopes as he awaits a heart transplant. Ranko shares a hospital room with a wounded man who, to Ranko's horror, is scheduled to donate his heart upon death. When he expires, though, a general commandeers the organ—which turns out to be faulty anyway. In "Stamp," Nedjeljko Cabrinovic, one of Archduke Ferdinand's assassins, pens an account of the murder that ignited WWI, occasioned by a letter of forgiveness from the Archduke's children. Novakovich has perfected the grand style of the Continental anecdote, with its structured pace mounting to that slightly perverse concluding moment when retrospection falls prey to irony. (Sept.)
