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A review by kiramke
The Hundred-Year Flood by Matthew Salesses
2.0
I've come across dozens of novels about young American men floundering for identity in Prague, and when I read them it's with deep reservations. These are the very people I avoided at all cost in their bookstore and bagel shop, with their trust funds and Lit degrees, treating a whole nation like the backdrop for their personal success story. Of course there's the draw, the backstory of someone I gave directions to, bought a book from, carefully shepherded out of a bar they were too drunk to realize they weren't welcome in.
This particular book is so amazingly typical with every trope of this specific genre, but it's also something else. The story is centered in Tee's inner life, and could really take place anywhere. That aspect is interesting, sometimes well-written, and kept me reading. The story of Prague feels like an overlay of every expat, and frankly I'd rather hear stories from the very real people of Karlín who lost so much, or the people who suffered in the floods of '97 and '99, or the astounding tale of the evacuated zoo, or the scientists and activists working to revitalize the Vltava and restore the floodplain to stop these ever-increasing "100-year floods."
Where does that leave me? I know, there's no zealot like a convert, but I still feel protective of Czechs' opportunities to tell their own stories. So as a 20-something American man's coming of age, this is quite good; as a book of Prague, it's depressingly familiar.
This particular book is so amazingly typical with every trope of this specific genre, but it's also something else. The story is centered in Tee's inner life, and could really take place anywhere. That aspect is interesting, sometimes well-written, and kept me reading. The story of Prague feels like an overlay of every expat, and frankly I'd rather hear stories from the very real people of Karlín who lost so much, or the people who suffered in the floods of '97 and '99, or the astounding tale of the evacuated zoo, or the scientists and activists working to revitalize the Vltava and restore the floodplain to stop these ever-increasing "100-year floods."
Where does that leave me? I know, there's no zealot like a convert, but I still feel protective of Czechs' opportunities to tell their own stories. So as a 20-something American man's coming of age, this is quite good; as a book of Prague, it's depressingly familiar.