Prague - Tapa blanda

"'The Hemmingways of the East bloc are finally here...[Prague] stays aloft on Phillips' astonishingly verbal verve' Time 'Ingenious...[Phillips] presents [his characters] with a wry generosity and a haunting poignancy to rival his wonderfully subversive wit' New York Times"

A group of American expats en route to adventure, inspiration, or perhaps even history in the making in exotic Prague, somehow get sidetracked and settle instead for the enigmatic and enlightening city of Budapest. Arriving in Hungary's capital, to pursue his elusive brother, journalist John Price finds himself drawn into the din of Budapest's nightclubs, a romance with a secretive young diplomat, the table of an elderly cocktail pianist, and the moody company of a young man obsessed with nostalgia, all in a bid to forget the larger questions that arise in a city still pocked with bullet holes from war and crushed rebellion. With humour, intelligence and masterly prose, Phillips captures the character of his contemporaries and brilliantly renders the Hungary of the past.