Prague Spring

by Simon Mawer

Overview

New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Room Simon Mawer returns to Czechoslovakia, this time during the turbulent 1960s, with a suspenseful story that mixes sex, politics, and betrayal.

In the summer of 1968—a year of love and hate, of Prague Spring and Cold War winter—Oxford students James Borthwick and Eleanor Pike set out to hitchhike across Europe, complicating a budding friendship that could be something more. Having reached southern Germany, they decide on a whim to visit Czechoslovakia, where Alexander Dubček's "socialism with a human face" is smiling on the world.

Meanwhile, Sam Wareham, First Secretary at the British embassy in Prague, is observing developments in the country with both a diplomat's cynicism and a young man's passion. In the company of Czech student Lenka Konečková, he finds a way into the world of Czechoslovak youth, its hopes and its ideas. For the first time, nothing seems off limits behind the Iron Curtain. Yet the wheels of politics are grinding in the background. The Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev is making demands of Dubček, and the Red Army is amassed on the borders. How will the looming disaster affect those fragile lives caught up in the invasion?

With this shrewd, engrossing, and sensual novel, Simon Mawer cements his status as one of the most talented writers of historical spy fiction today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982558208
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	11/13/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)

About the Author

Simon Mawer was born in 1948 in England. His first novel, Chimera, won the McKitterick Prize for first novels in 1989. Mendel’s Dwarf (1997), his first book to be published in the U.S., was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and was a New York Times Book to Remember for 1998. The Gospel of Judas, The Fall (winner of the 2003 Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature), and Swimming to Ithaca followed, as well as The Glass Room, his tenth book and eighth novel, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize. Trapeze (Other Press) was published in 2012.

Table of Contents

Part 1Chapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Part 2Chapter 4Chapter 5MasarykChapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Part 3Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Part 4Chapter 15HorakovaChapter 16Chapter 17Part 5Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22BorderChapter 23Chapter 24Part 6Chapter 25GhostsChapter 26Chapter 27Chpater 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Part 7Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35Part 8Chapter 36Chapter 37Chapter 38Part 9Chapter 39Chapter 40Chapter 41Chapter 42Chapter 43Part 10Chapter 44Chapter 45Chapter 46Chapter 47Chapter 48Chapter 49Chapter 50Chapter 51Chapter 52

Editorial Reviews

10/01/2018
Mawer sets his inconsistent novel in Czechoslovakia (also the setting of The Glass Room), this time during the brutal suppression by Russia of the country’s failed 1968 counterrevolution. While backpacking across Europe, Oxford students James Borthwick and Ellie Pike stray across the Iron Curtain and fall into the orbit of Prague-based British diplomat Sam Wareham and Czech student activist Lenka Koneckova. James and Ellie, neither particularly charming and both quite unsettled, spar about sex and champagne socialism; meanwhile, the solid, measured Sam becomes smitten with the secretive Lenka as the Soviet threat intensifies and Czech leader Alexander Dubcek’s bold promise of “socialism with a human face” fades. Mawer is marvelous at historical detail, and danger mounts in a way that keeps the pages turning, but though one of the characters falls victim to the violence and disappears, in the end there are no traitors and no real heroes, nor are any moral choices demanded of those who remain. These are love stories, with plenty of sex, set in extreme circumstances. Though the book careens through some awkward dialogue and uneven character development, there are moments of clarity and beauty that readers will savor. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

A Crime Reads Best Book of the Year 2018

“Prague Spring…plunges into the heady days of 1968: the pleasures of new freedoms, the hopes that were brutally crushed, and the politics, both behind the scenes and in the streets. All that you would want from a novel.” —Australian Book Review, Best Books of the Year

“Playing a neat cat-and-mouse game with the reader, [Mawer] gradually turns up the temperature of the novel, shaking us out of our comfort zones…a strong return to the Eastern European setting of his acclaimed novel The Glass Room…affecting and ultimately chilling.” —Kirkus Reviews 

“Mawer brilliantly captures the differing shades of naïveté and world weariness that characterize the Czech response to the possibility of greater freedom…[a] smart and touching look at the folly and sweetness of the young.” —Booklist 

“Mawer is a superb chronicler of past events in foreign countries, and Prague Springis a wonderfully atmospheric portrait of the city, as well as a political and historical thriller with dashes of espionage. It is as brilliant as anything he has written, which is saying a great deal.” —The Times (UK)  

“Mawer’s novels are always rich in intelligence and insight…and Prague Spring is no exception.” —Sunday Times  

“Masterly and chilling…as good as anything Simon Mawer has written; which means it is very good indeed.” —The Scotsman
  
“Engaging…Mawer’s prose is crisp, electrified by a sense of menace.” —Daily Mail

“The tumultuous events of 1968 make a fascinating backdrop to this intelligent drama that follows the fortunes of four people caught up in the Russian invasion. Superbly written, poignant and polished, this story will haunt you.” —Sunday Mirror
 
“A cracking fictional tale set in a beautifully researched (and very well-chosen) slice of history…the reader is always aware that the political and social excitement Mawer captures so well was tragically misplaced. Yet, knowing more than the characters do only serves to crank up the tension—and to make their optimism all the more heart-rending—as the climactic invasion approaches.” —Reader’s Digest

From the Publisher

09/15/2018
British diplomat Sam Wareham, stationed in Prague, is captivated by Czech student Lenka, who, like Lara in Dr. Zhivago, is abused by an influential man. In the West, "just-friends" Oxford students James and Eleanor continue their continental hitchhiking tour into Prague. They arrive on the eve of the Warsaw Pact's 1968 move to crush President Alexander Dubček's "socialism with a human face." Jolted by an attack on Lenka, James and Eleanor lose their adolescent joie de vivre in the blink of an eye. Sam has to shepherd his nationals out of the country and cannot help his adored Lenka either. VERDICT Billed as historical spy fiction, this newest work from Mawer (The Glass Room) succeeds as an infiltration into the nuanced territory of Alan Furst and Joseph Kanon. Though the sensuous attraction of lovers teasing each other could be a distraction, here it is a mirror of the interplay of youthful Czechoslovaks who believe in the burgeoning political springtime yet also fear it.—Barbara Conaty, Falls Church, VA

Library Journal

2018-08-21

During the calm before the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, two European couples in Prague get caught up in the era's false promise of love and freedom.

Oxford students James Borthwick and Eleanor Pike visit Prague on a whim while hitchhiking across Europe. He's a first-year science student from the north of England; she's a strong-willed socialist with a classier background who's studying English in her second year. The other couple consists of Prague-based British diplomat Sam Wareham and local student and part-time journalist Lenka Konecková. Separated from his girlfriend in the diplomatic service, Sam becomes smitten with Lenka and her beauty and youthful spirit. Much of the book tells the story of the twosomes on parallel tracks. For a long stretch, relatively minor concerns such as James' insecurity in his romantic pursuit of Ellie are front and center, with occasional timeouts for brief lessons in Czechoslovak history. But Mawer (Tightrope, 2012, etc.), playing a neat cat-and-mouse game with the reader, gradually turns up the temperature of the novel, shaking us out of our comfort zones with a surge of dark events. Into Sam's reluctant care falls a world-famous Russian pianist who pleads for asylum for himself and his violinist girlfriend. As the Soviet threat intensifies and Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubcek's bold promise of "socialism with a human face" fades, the characters' personal lives and the past traumas that inform them are put in a new perspective. "What had Lenka and her friends, with their 15 minutes of freedom, imagined would happen?" comments the third-person narrator. "This was reality. The last eight months had been but a dream."

Making a strong return to the Eastern European setting of his acclaimed novel The Glass Room (2009), British author Mawer limns the Cold War to affecting and ultimately chilling effect.

Kirkus Reviews