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The Bohemian city of Iluze is under siege, and there are but two people who understand that the fiendish source of the problem is Rübezahl. The winged old man has lived in captivity in the garret of Professor Kašpar's townhome for decades. When Waltraud Schlüsselblume, a beautiful seventeen-year-old gifted with telemetry and enslaved as a child by Rübezahl, hears his cries and exhortations for release, she is puzzled to discover that only she can hear him. Her refusal to assist Rübezahl's escape results in the monster's revenge: a spell cast over the city in the form of rain, hallucinations, and a strange apathy. Even worse, Rübezahl exacts personal torment for Waltraud by entering her body and mind at critical junctures.
The situation is made worse for Waltraud and the citizens of Iluze as journalists fall in line to protect the paranormal abuser and his wishes. As Waltraud comes of age and struggles to find the weapon that the now-impaired professor used to capture Rübezahl, she must make peace with her dysfunctional childhood, the shocking new loss of her stepparents, and her shadow self. This is not an easy task while navigating an exterior world fueled by nineteenth-century morals and misogyny, gaslighting politicians and journalists, and the spirits unleashed by Waltraud's mind and the minds of others.
A former poetry grad student, Laszlo uses his wordcraft to cast quite a spell in this multilayered dark fantasy. The lyrical prose adds extra atmosphere to the haunting, ethereal tale. The plot melds imaginative worldbuilding and philosophical political underpinnings, with implications recognizable to contemporary readers: class and political conflict amid an ever-shifting reality where fact is difficult to discern from projected fiction. This dreamlike tale blooms on the first page and mesmerizes with ever-increasing tension, culminating in an unexpected conclusion.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review