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Pronto seremos felices
A Spanish commercial traveller is working at his company's branch office in eastern Europe, where he had lived during the troubled years of the 80s. As the Cold-War world order splits and gives way to global capitalism, the commercial traveller returns to Prague, Bucharest and Sofia, where he meets up with some of the people who are essential to his life, and is astounded to witness the changes historical events and the passage of time make upon his way of life, his values and his activities. His final journey to Prague becomes the point of departure for an astonishing life journey brought about by his reencounter with Kamila, a colleague who disappeared without trace. This search is just the beginning of other reencounters that show the hero who the people he lived with really were and what lay beneath their secrecy.
In this rich, layered novel, journalist and author Ignacio Vidal-Folch examines life in Eastern Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The book is comprised of five sections, essentially short stories, in which the narrator travels through Prague, Sofia, Bucharest and other European cities, seeking to reconnect with the people he once knew there. Each section is named after one of these acquaintances: his former secretary, a past lover, a priest, a dissident intellectual and a business connection. While the stories of these five protagonists make up the bulk of each section, that is only the jumping-off point – each is packed with sub-plots about other minor characters, all with their own rich and interesting back stories.(…) At the heart of this is the narrator, a nameless travelling salesman from Spain. He makes for the perfect blank slate for telling these stories – inquisitive and searching, unassuming enough to serve as a cipher but still with enough agency to drive the novel forward.
(…) Vidal-Folch’s style is by turns direct, ironic, and lyrical. He achieves an intelligent, highly literary tone that, through wit and a lightness of touch, remains extremely readable. There are elements of the travelogue to the narrative, imbued with nostalgia. The prose is exemplary, with some beautifully drawn descriptions of faded industrial towns, intimate family life and swinging theatrical parties.
The dialogue is also expertly composed, with each character’s tone of voice and verbal tics seemingly perfectly suited to their character.
His characters are intricately drawn, fully rounded and highly memorable. Their stories weave together a picture of a region undergoing serious upheaval.
From the reader´s report by Lindsey Ford