Rating: 4 stars
Cover Synopsis: In a dark, compelling narrative of secrecy and betrayal, Marton trolls the archives of the Hungarian secret police to piece together her parents' imprisonment in and flight from Hungary in the mid-1950s.
What a story! I felt like I was the author's side-kick on an intense investigative journalist piece. The writing is definitely journalism -- not fluffy. Facts and memories corroborated and backed-up with evidence. Sometimes the proof interrupted the flow of the story, but I appreciated it. So often I read books -- and some news articles -- where I am expected to take the author's word for it. And that drives me crazy.
The story was all the more intense because it is about the author and her family. Marton's parents were the last free-press journalilsts behind the Iron Curtain, reporting on the communists for the Associated Press and United Press from their home country of Hungary. Their every move was watched -- even the children's nanny turned out to be a spy.
Incredible to see the things that people went through in defense of their basic rights and freedoms. How would I have acted in the same situation? Imagine discovering significant pieces of your parents' heroic past that you didn't know about during their lifetime. The author even discovers the true story about what happened to her grandparents -- that her parents didn't want her to know. Makes you think what about your own parents' or grandparents' past you don't about? Or how your own children will remember you and the story you tell them about yourself? "Enemies of the People" takes the reader back in time, and what an incredible ride.
