Excerpt from Porcupines by Fran Fabriczki, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

On the screen Bush had just taken the podium after fifteen minutes of homilies by the Hungarian head of state, Brunó Straub. The American president dismissed an umbrella politely placed over his head and, with apparent disdain for all the bureaucrats standing around him, barked out, "Is anybody gonna translate this?" His attitude—so incongruous with the respectful officiousness surrounding him—was enough to set off Szonja's laughter, but then, as though he were in the closing scene of one of his country's great movies, he tore up the large white index cards of his speech and promised to speak only from the heart. The crowd cheered while, out of sight, some poor translator fumbled with his own notes, unprepared for this show of spontaneity. Bush called over to him, off screen: "Tear that thing up!" Szonja's English was good enough to understand the president's slow, chewy American words, and the crowd could at least understand his Hollywood gestures—oh, but that poor, underpaid translator. He began to chase the president's sentences like an inelegant echo.

"You've been out here in the rain for too long, but Barbara and I feel the warmth of this welcome."

"Nevertheless the feeling of the warm—"

"And the rain doesn't make a darn bit of difference. We feel at home right here in this great capital."

"The rain doesn't stop at all, in the love and the wel—"

"And I salute the leaders of Hungary, and I salute the reforms and the change that is taking place in this wonderful country."

"I say hello to all the leaders, hello to all the people, and hello to all the reforms that are—"

"And I want you to know that I am here as president of the United States because we have in our country a special affection and feeling for the people of Hungary."

"The reason I come here as president is that I have separate warm feelings—"

"So thank you very much for this welcome, you'll have to listen to me again tomorrow, I'm sure at some dryer time and place."

"Thank you for your welcome and I hope tomorrow you will hear of a dryer place—"

"Thank you. God bless you, and God bless your great country!"

By the end of it, Szonja's mother had the giggles as well, though hers were more timid and as respectful as giggles could be.

"Don't know what you two find so funny about this—for better or worse, it's a historic moment, you'll be glad to have witnessed it someday."

"Oh, I'm perfectly happy to have witnessed it already," Szonja said, flipping through a magazine lying between her legs on the floor. She tried to keep the tone light, careful not to prompt one of her father's increasingly frequent bouts of quiet discontent, which, though muted, somehow still managed to fill the whole room. Mr. Imre had the diplomat's habit of reticence; he would rarely give voice to his grievances, but privately he viewed with increasing discomfort his country turning, little by little, from all that he had been told to believe and uphold his entire life. There was a bitter ness even to his silences now.

And then there were other, more private resentments. As she looked up at her parents, it occurred to Szonja how deftly the both of them skirted around what was on all of their minds—this vision from the West must surely have reminded them of Rina. Had she, after five years spent in America, adopted their outsized gestures? When her sister spoke English, was it with their voice, projected above all others? Did she share their president's "special affection" for this forgotten chip off the Eastern Bloc?


Before Rina set her heart on marriage that heart belonged to some thing else entirely—something with a lot more synthesizers and simple chord progressions. At least that's how Szonja saw it when she remembered their nights spent under the spell of the Pet Shop Boys, Boy George, George Michael (the word association between these artists was incidental yet somehow made their enjoyment feel inevitable). Side by side, they strained to hear the tinny sound of Rina's secondhand cassette player and wrote out the lyrics in a notebook for closer scrutiny.

Excerpted from Porcupines by Fran Fabriczki. Copyright © 2026 by Fran Fabriczki. Excerpted by permission of Summit Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.