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A Novel
by Fran Fabriczki
Book Reviewed by:A fresh and witty debut about a young immigrant mother and her increasingly inquisitive daughter, who wakes up one day and decides to find out who her father is.
Sonia is a Hungarian immigrant who is raising her daughter, Mila—her beloved Milosh—on her own in sunny Los Angeles. Her days are a blur of not-quite-illegal business activities, dodging PTA moms, and baking birthday cakes laced with rum—minor mistakes that nevertheless continually remind her of everything she doesn't understand about America and parenthood. Mila, meanwhile, is juggling violin and swimming lessons and navigating the treacherous social politics of school with the help of a less-than-helpful guidebook on how to be cool in the sixth grade—all the while trying to get her secretive mother to share something, anything, about her past.
Sonia is sure that their bond, stitched from drive-through dinners, extracurricular activities, and a lot of exasperated affection for each other—will be enough to satisfy her daughter. But her guarded lifestyle has left Mila lonely, isolated, and ready to write herself into a bigger story. When she stumbles across emails between her mother and a man she's never met, Mila decides to take matters into her own hands and forms a plan that will implode their carefully constructed lives.
Moving between Budapest before the fall of the Berlin Wall; Washington, DC, in the tense years of the Cold War; and the bright sunshine of early aughts Los Angeles, Porcupines is an irresistible novel about mothers and daughters, secrecy and loneliness, belonging and reinvention—and what happens when the truth can't be held back any longer.
Part 1
Los Angeles, 1996
What Mila's mother tells her on the first day of school is different from what other mothers of children at Mount Washington Elementary School are saying at the very same time to their very own six-year-old children. This is almost certainly a fact. But it is not for Mila to know the difference. That will come later: at bars while forming new intimacies over tepid beer; at her therapist's office, divulging childhood stories with little prompting; or perhaps in self-serious short stories sagging with the weight of too many metaphors. For now, though, she is unaware of any oddity in her mother's behaviour. Sonia leans down and holds Mila's shoulders as though afraid she might fall back wards from the burden of her backpack (a not entirely unfounded fear—children's backpacks never do seem proportionate to their small frames).
She looks Mila in the eye and says, "Now, remember, Mila, we live about a five-minute drive away, your mother works at an office, and ...
In the timeline set in 2001, where Mila convinces Sonia to chaperone her fifth-grade orchestra, she is inspired by the movies Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally. The other timeline takes us back into Sonia's experiences as the daughter of a Hungarian diplomat, showing how her life in America began as she traveled from Hungary at eighteen to visit her older sister, Rina, in Los Angeles. And as the story evolves, we see how Mila's plan forces Sonia to confront the two aspects of her life she has been avoiding: speaking about her family, heritage, and origins in America and facing the reality of how her secrecy has affected Mila. The plot is set up for a bigger reckoning than what actually happens, which leaves the ending a bit unsatisfying. The driving action in the 2001 storyline is Mila's attempt to learn who her father is. We get some answers, and the ending signals a decision, but it doesn't feel as cathartic or have as much payoff as the reader might expect for a story grounded in family. Still, the story's premise is charming, and Sonia's humor and voice are enjoyable...continued
Full Review
(1000 words)
(Reviewed by Letitia Asare).
driana Trigiani, bestselling author of The View From Lake Como
Fran Fabriczki's spectacular debut novel Porcupines is destined to become an instant classic. Hollywood! Budapest! The Berlin Wall! A goulash made of diamonds, pearls and gold! Jenny Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of Pineapple Street
A dazzling mother-daughter story, Porcupines shows us the softness that lies beneath the spikes as an eccentric single mother tries to hide her past from her increasingly curious daughter. A witty and tender debut.
In Fran Fabriczki's debut novel Porcupines, Sonia's father is a retired diplomat. His job deeply influenced her family's lifestyle, as they divided their time between their home country, Hungary, and the United States, specifically Washington, DC, where he was posted. Part of the story takes place during the 1980s in Budapest, the capital and largest city of Hungary, and part of it in America before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall—an event Hungary helped set in motion. While Porcupines doesn't delve deeply into the political and historical details of this time, Sonia's father's job is relevant to understanding the anxieties, hopes, and secrecy the characters have experienced. The book offers a glimpse into the life of a ...
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