Eliade Moldovan is the author of a trilogy of novels about the Fracony, an alien race that, from its base on Jupiter’s moon Europa, secretly controls activities on Earth. Eventually, the Fracony overplays its hand and is embroiled in a civil war. It wasn’t hard for Moldovan to imagine these events. He simply had to recall growing up in Romania during Nicolae Ceausescu’s brutal Communist regime. In his newest book, THESE LIVES, Moldovan drops the science fiction and tells his story. Starting with the forced abdication of King Michael I in 1947, which led to the establishment of the Communist Party as Romania’s official ruling party, Moldovan’s tale is a grim one. “All the fear generated by an oppressive regime,” he writes, “the lies, the corruption that I witnessed–I wondered if that was the case all around the planet.” The government took what it wanted, when it wanted, consequences be damned. Even the weather, it seemed, was on the oppressors’ side: “Too much sun or too much rain. The clouds were lower and more menacing.” Somehow, Moldovan escaped this nightmare, emigrating to Canada in 1993, where he still lives.

The broad outlines of Moldovan’s story will be familiar to anyone versed in post-World War II European history. His first-person accounts, however, make that story more real, more immediate, than anything on the History Channel. He showcases his background in fiction with his descriptions of individuals, especially thuggish Communist officers and bureaucrats. Here is how he describes one such individual: “His face was rough, like an unfinished sculpture. Square face, strong jaw. His smile showed teeth good for breaking stones. His brown hair had a very short cut. And his eyes did not move in his head.” Moldovan isn’t explicitly funny–what was there to laugh about?–but a bleak humor is evident in some passages, such as the account of Sofia, who wrapped her sick husband Pavel in wet rugs and coaxed him into a warm bread oven to cure him. Moldovan ends the anecdote with “Pavel felt better after each time Sofia baked him and he more willingly accepted his treatment”–a tour de force of ironic understatement.

Full of philosophical musings, gritty survival tales and unforgettable characters, Eliade Moldovan’s THESE LIVES is a fascinating look at the little-understood world of postwar Romania.

~Anthony Aycock for IndieReader