THE HOUSE OF CARDBOARD

In Loveric’s novel, a woman longs to escape war-torn Croatia and start a new life in New Zealand.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Ivana Maric grows up in Sarajevo under an authoritarian communistic regime that is by turns feckless and despotic. She loathes school but is precociously intelligent, and she excels in both mathematics and music, especially the piano. She earns a reputation as a “famous nerd,” a loner who avoids youthful social life, and she yearns to not only flee the political oppression of Sarajevo but also to “escape the pressures of marriage and motherhood.” Despite her avowed disinterest in politics, her life becomes consumed by political concerns when, in 1991, Croatia separates from Yugoslavia, igniting a war that tears the country apart. Ivana begins corresponding with Anne, the cousin of family friends living in New Zealand; the practice helps her to learn English, and she begins to fantasize about a beginning a new life far away from her native country’s endless tumult, a chaos that transforms her life into a “relentless nightmare.” (“Each letter from Anne in New Zealand echoed in my mind, fuelling my determination to break free.”) In this affecting work, Ivana is motivated both by the insufferable circumstances of her life and concrete aspirations to start over—the novel is a “testament to the human spirit that clings fiercely to hope and humanity in the direst of circumstances.” The author occasionally indulges in sentimental, soaring rhetoric, but the story’s hero is powerfully drawn. Loveric’s command of the political and historical culture of Croatia is masterful—she brings that tempestuous world, and those who endured it, to vivid life. This is an artfully composed amalgam of the personal and the political that affords the reader a dramatic peek into history.

A captivating story set during a turbulent time in Croatian history.