FOURTEEN TILES

In this mosaic of short essays, the author reflects on encounters with colorful characters.

Soukup describes his book as “a collection of stories about the author’s friends who did unusual, often crazy things.” Though the focus is on his acquaintances, Soukup’s own storied life sneaks into these pages. He grew up in Prague and was 8 years old when World War II ended. He aspired to be a cellist and a painter but eventually became an electrical engineer; fled to Canada in 1970, two years after the Soviets invaded Prague; and co-wrote computer programs with his wife. Each entry focuses on a friend encountered during Soukup’s eventful route through the 20th century and into the 21st. He teases out themes large and small: boats, war, wives, loss, wounds and illnesses, jobs, art and music, hardship. In “Two Knives,” Soukup recalls meeting Sean, a Vietnam vet with horrific tales of combat, who helped him fix his boat. Soukup compares his path through life with that of a fellow Czech painter in “Algorithmic Vampire.” Another essay recounts the author’s friendship with a brilliant engineer from Kiev as they struggled to maintain their relationship across years, national divisions, and the Iron Curtain. In the three stories of the “Cello Saga,” the author remembers the beloved teacher who taught him to play. The book’s website includes samples of the music mentioned in these sections.

Soukup is a gifted writer. His background as a painter infuses his writing with visual potency; a sailboat “seems to fly over the water leaving a trail of light like a comet.” He has a nose for sensory details, as when he describes a painter’s studio: “A fresh breeze…brought in the scent of blooming chestnuts from the park below.” At their best, the stories make room for the human error and subjectivity of the storyteller, most notably in “Unknown Great Artist.” The chapter ends with Soukup’s tracking down Pavla, his childhood crush, to share what he wrote about her. She was less than impressed: “I don’t remember some of your episodes and you misinterpret the others,” she says. He admits that “the feverish mind of a love-struck teenager” isn’t always reliable. When Soukup tries to impart meaning, as in “Algorithmic Vampire,” an otherwise poignant story, it goes poorly. He ends with a pat note about his own fortune: “I had nothing to fear.” Soukup writes fondly of his mother and his late wife, Hanna, whom he calls “my…colleague, best friend, and my soulmate”; he admires husbands who love and dote on their partners. Yet his writing is overwhelmingly male in focus and addresses women somewhat condescendingly. At a dinner party, he observes, “For all of us, including the women, life is one big adventure.” In this book, women only ever enter the frame tangentially, glancingly, and they are rarely responsible for the “crazy things” documented here.

A flawed but rich collection of portraits that evoke the pains and joys of the past.