A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True
Brigid Pasulka
Fifty years later, their granddaughter Beata journeys to the fairy-tale city that lit up her grandmother's eyes and illuminated her stories. However, Kraków in the new Poland is not the same city Anielica left behind. Caught between poverty and prosperity, history and modernity, and teeming with dissolute youth, 1990s Kraków is cold and unwelcoming. In league with her street-savvy cousin Irena and Magda, Irena's beautiful but troubled daughter, Beata struggles to find a foothold in a rapidly growing city.
Artfully weaving together the strands of Anielica's and Beata's stories, Pasulka has penned an ingenious and involving novel so compelling that readers will be reluctant to turn the last page.