Description
The President, the founder of the Nation, is an old man now, but his young and unifying spirit stands steadfastly at the heart of, Vesna Maric’s debut novel. Images of and tributes to the President are found in all homes in the Nation, procured from stores like the one Ruben and Rosa run. The couple met as partisans, fighting to forge the Nation in the crucible of conflict. But even though their pride shines as brightly as the gilded bust of the President, the younger generation has questioned whether the Nation really has its citizens best interests in mind. Ruben’s brother is actively working to avoid mandatory military service as he pines away for another man, and Ruben and Rosa’s daughter, Mona, is too busy adjusting to womanhood to get caught up in state-mandated nostalgia. To further exacerbate the family tension, an elderly uncle claims to have invented a machine to see into the future, which he stores in the basement of the family’s apartment building. But there is no telling what the future really holds in store as the beliefs of the past slowly start to crumble.
“The President Shop reads like a kind of fable about what it was like to grow up in Eastern Europe under the rule of Tito, but it’s broader than that, it’s about cult of personality, it’s about authoritarian rule . . . and I found it unnervingly resonant with my own experiences as an American.” —Brad Listi, Otherppl
“Maric pulls off captivating moments of personal and political disillusionment . . . [offering] a memorable testament to how politics can fracture a family.” —Publishers Weekly
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