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'A Candle Before Midnight' is the gripping story of Vlasta, a daughter of immigrant parents. With three older sons, the family settles on the Rockaway seashore of New York. There, they strive to assimilate into the American mosaic and survive the Great Depression of the 1930's. With Croatian-Catholic roots, Vlasta's formative years are infused with old-world customs and language as well as male chauvinism. Despised because of her gender and a birth abnormality, she is denied even maternal love and is faced with a diabolical evil. To compensate, she strains to excel in school and sports, bonds with a brother and an aunt and attempts to keep her deep faith and solace in God's goodness. In this novel, many actual persons and events from the Rockaways were faithfully and historically portrayed. The only adjustment made was placing them in a more suitable time-frame.
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'The Splintered House' is the historical saga of two American immigrant families and their native Croatia, both fractured by hate, greed, politics and religion during the tumultuous 20th Century
Signing on as cabin-boys on the Baron Gauche, an Austro-Hungarian
ocean liner from Dubrovnik in 1909, two cousins, Johnny Skroza and Roko
Kursar 'jump ship' in New York. Like Siamese twins, they begin their American
odyssey, but can not shed ties to the Old World where an ancient land
dispute continues to fester. Through two World Wars, the Great Depression
and the Yugoslav civil war of the 1990s, their two families, both in America
and Croatia multiply, but continue to quarrel. Fascism, the meddling Catholic
church and the trade-union struggle in America only add fuel to their
discordant lives while in the background democracy erodes in McCarthy
America and ethnic Serbs war on their brother Yugoslavs in Europe. In
love and war, the Skroza and Kursar families lie besieged, breathing heavily
behind impregnable walls.
A Candle Before Midnight
When I started reading “A Candle Before Midnight”, I presumed that it would be a tale about an indigent immigrant Croatian family that rose from poverty to financial prosperity. As I continued reading, I realized that is was much more a story about family dynamics and interpersonal relationships.
The story, as narrated by Vlasta, the only daughter of an immigrant family, describes the many adversities she faces overcoming cultural barriers and financial difficulties. If those problems were not difficult by themselves, they were further exacerbated by the onset of the great depression.
My interest in the story was heightened because of its setting which took place in the Rockaways. As someone who grew up in Far Rockaway, it was exciting to visualize the boardwalk concessions, the Central Avenue stores, and the actual Far Rockaway High School teachers that were all accurately recounted in the story. I especially liked the description of Grant’s Department store. It made me feel like I was still wandering the aisles. What I also found heartening was the harmony between families from different ethnic and religious backgrounds that was so warmly described in the book. People were able to put aside their petty jealousies, and religious and ethnic differences in order to care for and help one another though harsh times.
As I read further, the experiences and challenges faced by Vlasta, came to the fore, trumping even the compelling setting. Vlasta was able to come to the realization that oftentimes people’s lives are formed by events that are far beyond their ability to control.
The ending of the story surprised me. I did not expect this outcome. However, when I went back to reread pages from the beginning of the book I discovered that the connection had come around full circle.