April Fool's Day
A Novel
On Sale: 03/14/2006
April Fool's Day
A Novel
On Sale: 03/14/2006
Format:
About the Book
Ivan Dolinar is born in Tito's Yugoslavia on April Fool's Day, 1948 -- the auspicious beginning of a life that will be derailed by backfiring good intentions in a world of propaganda and paranoia. At age nineteen, an innocent prank cuts the young Croatian's budding medical career short and lands him in a notorious labor camp. Released on the eve of civil war, Ivan is drafted into the wrong army, becoming a pawn in an absurd conflict in which the rules and loyalties shift abruptly and without warning. But even in a world gone mad, one course of action remains eminently sane: survival.
Told with bitingly dark humor and a deep tenderness, April Fool's Day is both a devastating political satire and a razor-sharp parody of war.
Critical Praise
“An ambitious first novel ... The magic realism of the final sections is exemplary; Novakovich has found his groove.” — Washington Post
“[Ivan] is a fully rounded character, the type of protagonist...that we rarely find in fiction.” — Chicago Tribune
“Delightfully neurotic . . . Novakovich brings a deft touch to his ambitious and unconventional first novel.” — Columbus Dispatch
“APRIL FOOL’S DAY is a wonder...[It] has an economy of style and narrative that all good readers will relish.” — Republic of Letters
“A heartfelt novel about the war-torn Balkans that’s actually quite funny...and touching.” — GQ
“Both humorous and horrifying as it traces one man’s misadventures.” — USA Today
“Wickedly funny and deeply harrowing...Novakovich knows how to tell a story...Strange, lyrical beauty abounds here.” — Maud Casey, New York Times Book Review
“Disturbing and frequently beautiful...the novel is a Balkan conflation of Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Gogol’s DEAD SOULS, and SLAUGHERHOUSE FIVE.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune
“There are very few native-born English speakers who write as well. — Tibor Fischer, The Guardian
“[A] laugh-while-you-grimace novel...[Novakovich] writes with dark wit, and a touching sympathy.” — Newsweek International
“Rife with dark humor [and] notable for its witty reflections on politics, literature and the vicissitudes of the human heart.” — San Diego Union-Tribune
“An agreeably eccentric first novel from one of the more interesting and unusual contemporary writers.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred
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Product Details
- ISBN: 9780060583989
- ISBN 10: 0060583983
- Imprint: Harper Perennial
- On Sale: 03/14/2006
- Pages: 256
- List Price:19.99 CAD
- BISAC1 : FICTION / Historical / World War II
- BISAC2 : FICTION / World Literature / Europe (General)
- BISAC3 : FICTION / Historical
- BISAC4 : FICTION / Contemporary Women
- BISAC5 : FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense