The Journey from Prague Street — Hana Demetz

Hana Demet'z The House on Prague Street, published in 1980 was a classic novel of the Eastern European experience in the early days of Nazi aggression; Chaim Potok called it "a lovely, poignant jewel." Now, exactly ten years later, comes The Journey from Prague Street, a novel that brings the story to America, where Demetz's richly portrayed characters find both new challenges, and renewed courage.

The Journey from Prague Street follows the life of Helene, who flees wartime Czechoslovakia with her husband Paul to find freedom and a home in America. Yet, after years of comfortable domesticity, Helene's life is shattered when Paul decides to ask for a divorce. Helene must start anew one more time, and she does so with a survivor's courage and tenacity. It is a test of will and faith as strong, in its way, as anything she has ever known; finally, though, she closes a sort of magic circle, finding contentment with a man whose family came, generations ago, from the same world as her own. Their life together rings with echoes of a Bohemian past that seems ever more distant, but that will never fade away.