A short story collection of cheerless short stories, but not lacking in humour
Man, whose name the magpie stole, faces disappearing into the mist, the mysterious body behind the bathroom wall and the broken coffee machine as the cause of the maritime disaster - but also the inability to communicate one's own feelings to loved ones, childhood wrongs buried under the skin, breakups hanging like a heavy cloud over the summer days, Fear of open doors and groping for authenticity flowing through your fingers. Beech leaves, animal graveyards and stars at the end of the world.
Vratislav Kadlec's prose debut offers seventeen short stories, in which Karel Michal and his Drummers for everyday life seem to meet the texts of Jorge Luis Borges. The individual stories grope for different forms of boundaries, unclear thresholds within and around us, and life's milestones beyond which there is no return.
The characters of the stories often find themselves in unhappy situations, but the narrative is not lacking in humour and we can feel the narrator's mischievous smile behind the words. Humor arises in moments when we realize a mistake that doesn't hurt. However, even the pain threshold is of a very vague and variable nature.
The publication of the book was supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.
