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Memento Park

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So I probably would have liked this more had I not kept comparing it to one of the greatest books ever written, The Goldfinch. Something about the fact that both books kind of center around an obsession with a single painting, albeit for far different reasons, made me yearn for Donna Tartt's effortless character study and insanely beautiful prose. This book wasn't quite at that level but I was more engaged the more I read. I liked it a lot. Something about Matt was both off-putting and yet I was rooting for him. Plus there was a legal aspect to it (without giving anything away), which always interests me, being an attorney. The title particularly has left me thinking about the book in a different way than when I was reading it and I can't help but wonder about the characters still.

Memento Park comes out TODAY on March 13, 2018 and you can purchase HERE. This was an interesting intersection between religion and art told vaguely through family history; I enjoyed it and you might, too.

These are the things I associate with Rachel, with the first time I awoke beside her: dusk in the city as the streets downshift with evening traffic, taxicab headlights plangently illuminating the avenues; the tiny crooked streets of Pari's Jewish quarter; bundles of fresh vegetables overflowing the stands of a weekend farmers market, earth-covered mushrooms especially; bales of hay, warm and pungent under the midday sun.

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I loved this book. I loved the beautiful writing, the very real characters flaws in all, and the story itself and the intriguing way it unfolded. The story focuses on a sons attempt to reclaim a painting seized by the Nazis but delves deep into the troubled relationship between a son and his father and opposing views about discussing and remembering the past. It deals with the expectations of ones parents and the wounds of unfulfilling them.

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Matt Santos is standing in an auction hall, looking at a picture, Budapest Street Scene by Ervin Kálmán. It will be sold the next day and he is ruminating about how this picture came to let him know more about his family than he ever did before and how it changed his life completely. His father had warned him about it, told him to let go, not to pursue the case any further, but he wouldn’t listen. So he is standing there on his own, alone, with his thoughts about his ex-girl-friend Tracy, whom he still loves, his lawyer Rachel, who helped him to get hold of the picture, and about his now deceased father.

Memento Park is not easy to summarise. It’s a novel about art, Jewish art in Nazi Europe; it’s about a complicated father-son relationship; it’s a story about people leaving their past behind and burying it down in the back of their minds after emigration; it’s about love and trust, and about religion and the faith you have and to what extent this creates your identity.

Matt is the child of Jewish family who suffered in Budapest under the Nazis, yet he doesn’t know anything about it. Even though he was never told anything about his family’s history, it lives on in him and through the relationship with his father. A father who does not seem to be loving or at least a bit affectionate. He is always distant and until the very end, Matt doesn’t understand why and he never asked. To me, this is the central aspect of the novel, even though I found the Kálmán story, his life and word, even though completely fictional but close to the stories of some artists of that time, also interesting.

Mark Sarvas chose an interesting title for his novel, “Memento Park” is the name of a location in Budapest where all the statues of former communist grandees are exhibited. It’s a way of dealing with the past, neither hiding nor ignoring it, but giving it a place where you can confront it; it’s just a part of life and it helped to shape – here to town and country – but also you as a person. In this way, there are more layers to the novel which make it a great reading experience.

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In this novel Matt Santos receives a message that a painting is being restored to him. He never knew anything this painting’s existence, but delves into the its past and therefore into his family’s.

I was really looking forward to reading Memento Park. I love art and a good family mystery, but unfortunately this one fell a bit flat for me.

Memento Park is mainly about relationships, mainly the father-son relationship, but also about family and romantic relationships. Apart from that, it is also about letting go of the past and being at peace with it.

The narrative is sometimes aimed at one person,then at another. For a large part Matt is relating his story to a security guard at the auction house where the painting is selling. Sometimes it is aimed at Rachel, the art lawyer or his father. It certainly is a different way of telling a story and I did not mind it, but I am not sure it helped the plot much.

When I finished the book, I just felt a bit deflated. I like it, but I had just expected a more emotional ride. I simply did not feel as invested as I feel I should have.

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Each book we read takes us on a different journey--and, this will be a trip I remember for a long, long time. Mark Sarvas' novel was both troubling and compelling and I found myself reading it very quickly because I needed (not wanted, but truly needed) to know its outcome. BUT, when I finished reading the contemplation began.

This is a book to savor---maybe in its aftermath, like I am doing., or perhaps as you are reading it. The relationships between the protagonist and his family, his friends, his colleagues, are all less than we want to experience in a hero. But, he questions. And, he seeks. And, he changes. Perhaps he grows. . . . .

I was uncomfortable with many aspects of the book--particularly the main character's relationships with his father and his fiance, but as he worked through his questions, it raised questions for me as a reader and created a valuable literary experience for me.

It would be a stretch to say I enjoyed the book, but I valued it tremendously. Everything we encounter in life can't be easy, or accept a "simple fix"---- this complex story took me on an interesting journey and I appreciated the ride.

Netgalley provided me an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

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This was a well written descriptive novel about so many things---family dynamics, family history and stolen art during WWII. The protagonist makes a journey to Budapest, literally and figuratively, to understand the meaning in a painting and to understand his own life.

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While this did not resonate with me the way I suspect it will with others, it's a well written novel of a man coming to terms with his own family history and with his father. Matt's world changes when he is contacted about a painting taken from his family during the Holocaust and travels to Hungary. The novel is framed in terms of Matt's rumination about the painting and life. It is indeed a book of self discovery and has some good points to make. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

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The description of this book made me very excited to read it and I did enjoy parts of this book. I was intrigued by the story but I found the storytelling device to be frustrating. For me, having the almost the entire story told as a series of reflections occurring over the course of one evening detracted from the book. I found myself frustrated by the narrator's internal monologue with the security guard. I felt like I was being pulled out of a story that I was fully immersed in and having to get re-engaged all the time. My frustration could definitely have been influenced by my mood at the time I read it so please give it a try if it sounds interesting to you!

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Mark Santos, born Mathias Santos, is a successful character actor living in Los Angeles with his fiance, Tracy, who is a sought-after catalog model. Mark and Tracy's careers aren't unusual for people who live in L.A., the hub of the entertainment industry in the USA. Mark Sarvas's new novel, MEMENTO PARK, is a vibrant rendition of a family who fled Hungary just as Hitler was about to overtake the country. The storyteller is Mark, the son of Gabor Szántós who was a boy when he arrived in the USA. Much of the book is about Matt's struggle with his father. He loved him, and he hated him. It could be anyone's story, and that in itself makes the book quite a fascinating read.

Mark ruminates over his life story during one night as he sits with a precious work of art, "Budapest Street Scene," in an auction house. He is alone except for the guard, and the painting that has come into his possession through the efforts of restoring stolen articles from the Jewish population by Hitler's regime. Mark received a call from the Australian Embassy informing him that they were in possession of the painting and would be shipping it to him as his father told them he wasn't interested in having it.

Mark has puzzled over his father nearly all his life. He wants his approval, but it is always just out of his reach. If he gets a choice part he auditioned for; his father only wants to know, "how much?" It seemed that the only part of Mark's life that his father approved of was his fiance, Tracy. Mark has a similar relationship with his mother who divorced his father five years ago. She lives in Paris and is thoroughly enjoying her freedom from family life. She has let go, and Mark can't count on her for any family history. He wants to know more about this painting that belonged to his family. He wants to know more about his family history, and this is where we delve into the meat of the story. Mark begins with his acquaintance of a lawyer named Rachel to look into his Jewish background, another aspect of his father's life that is a black hole of mystery with vague answers at each turn.

Mark's story reveals itself in slow, precise vignettes of memory that come together with his trip to Budapest and to New York where his father still lives. The story could be heartbreaking, but Mark Sarvas has fine-tuned his novel in a universal story of human history and a personal family history that is perfect in its presentation. Everyone will find something to ponder and appreciate in this brilliant new novel.

Thank you to the publisher through NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC and offer a response.

The publish date for MEMENTO PARK is March 13, 2018.

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Definitely a mixed reaction on this one. It’s an intriguing tale for those who care about its core points - fathers and sons, Jewishness, survivors of WWII - but elsewhere veers between a kind of essential crudeness and an excess of self-absorption. Yes, this is admittedly the central character’s besetting sin, but the editor might have done more to control it, soften its load. The whole book feels like early work, a little too emphatic, in need of subtlety, but there is talent evident here as well and with luck better to come.

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Matt Santos has had the misfortune of completely misunderstanding his father. He thought he knew enough about Gabor Szántós’ life in Hungary during the war and after to explain his gruffness, his obsession with toy cars, and his reluctance to talk about the past. But after Matt learns that a rare painting might have been stolen from the family in 1944 at the beginning of Mark Sarvas’ Memento Park, he finally starts to see how little he really knew.

Matt has done his best to distance himself from his father. Gabor was a tough man to live with. He would get angry for the smallest reasons. His toy cars were sacred and not to be touched. Any talk about the past was ruthlessly suppressed. When news of a lost painting by Ernst Kálman (fictional as far as I can tell) arrives, Gabor refuses to say anything and tells Matt that they “have nothing to with them.” But the painting gives Matt a perfect opportunity to investigate his origins himself.

With only hints about his Hungarian Jewish heritage, Matt has no idea who he is. He’s felt the lack of an understanding about his family history. Every time he gets close to Judaism—mezuzahs, the cantor’s songs, shabbes dinner—he feels a frisson of belonging. It’s more than he got from his father and it baffles him why Gabor cut himself off from their collective past. It’s only when Matt has a brush with violent anti-Semitism himself that he starts to understand what it means, even now, to be a Jew.

Matt tells his story (silently) to an unlistening security guard in the gallery where the recovered painting hangs. The framing feels a little gimmicky at times, but it allows Matt to move back and forth through time. He lets us reflect on his growing awareness of misunderstanding his father, how Judaism fills the gaps in his existence, and his tangled relationships with two women with missions that he falls in love with. It’s an affecting story and, even though I got a little exasperated by Matt’s neediness, I enjoyed his discoveries.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss, for review consideration. It will be released 13 March 2018.

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This story morphs and disguises throughout, an occasional love story, a story of faith, the complications of a father son relationship, and the recently rediscovered painting "Budapest street scene" which has it own story. There were moments of sheer brilliance, I really enjoyed the moments when Mark directly addresses Virgil, a security guard at the auctioneers house, and the device the author uses to feel we are being directly communicated to as the readers in this master class of the slow reveal.
I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in more literary writing, art, history, and the complications of love and family.
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with this arc available through netgalley.

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There were many reasons I requested this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I was born and raised in Hungary, I am Jewish and my family lost many members during the Holocaust. I grew up in communist Hungary and left for America way before the fall of communism. I have been back a few times after the fall, I have been to Memento Park, the title of this novel and I have seen the shoe memorial at the shore of the Danube.
So, this book was very special for me for all the above reasons. With all that said, I liked the book, but didn’t love it. Matt, (Mátyás in Hungarian) is born in the United States to Holocaust survivors, who left communist Hungary in 1956 during the student uprising against communism. His parents (now divorced) didn’t talk about the war years or their Judaism, Matt grew up in a secular household, much like I and many children of Holocaust survivors did. When Matt gets a call about a painting that surfaced after many years and might have belonged to his family, his life changes. He tries to understand the story of the painting, the Jewish artist that painted it and his relationship with his father, his fiancée and his lawyer. He travels back to Budapest to meet with family members who might have known about his family owning the painting. While I loved the story itself, I found the narrative often confusing, Matt seemed to have been talking to a security guard at an auction house where the painting was put up but other times he was speaking to Rachel, his lawyer. Sometimes the timeline was mixed up also, in one chapter he is already in Budapest, in a later chapter he is still getting ready to go.
The scene at the Danube shoe memorial unfortunately was very realistic, as Hungary today is one of the most anti Semitic country in the world. Overall I give this book 4 stars.
Thanks NetGalley, the publisher and the author for this advanced copy and for the opportunity to revisit my native country and my own family history.

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Matt Santos’ life had hit its stride: his acting career was producing steady, good paying work; he was engaged to a kind, lovely and intelligent woman; and he had a distant but cordial relationship with his father, a Hungarian born Jew. One day Matt is contacted by someone who informs him that he may be the rightful owner of a painting that the Nazi’s stole from his family during WWII. In investigating this potential claim, Matt must face his ambivalent relationships with his father, his Jewishness and his fiancée. This novel is beautifully written and heartbreakingly rendered. Highly recommended.

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This is a wonderfully written novel that offers a new take on the issue of art looted from Jewish families during WWII. Matt is set on the path of proving provenance of a painting found in Australia that is believed to have belonged to his family before the war. Matt's a working actor, pretty scattered about his career, his father, Judaism, and his relationships with others in general. He's not sure he cares about this painting for anything but the money. He makes a halfhearted attempt to confirm ownership to start with, but he becomes more engaged as he learns more about that past that made his father so harsh to him.

This novel is more about Matt's journey of discovery than it is about the art. There's a surprise at the end. Thoughtful and meaningful, and a good read as well.

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Thank you NetGalley for advanced digital copy. I give the story 4 stars but the way it was told 3 for an overall 3.5. I loved the story. It’s about fathers and sons, our faith and religion, Judaism and survivorship, and art. But the story telling was a little confusing to me as it appears he was addressing his thoughts at times to a security guard, to his lawyer, to his girlfriend and other characters. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if they were real conversations or most likely his thoughts. I felt so much for what this character was going through but the way he told the story was distracting for me. It was a confusing story telling device for me. I was also challenged sometimes by the changes in time setting — present to past weren’t always clear. The timing jumps around. But as said, the story itself was special.

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I am a Hungarian Jew. Matt’s journey is my journey. Can I write a review of this book, which I found so deeply moving that is not colored by my own experiences? I doubt it.

So, with that being said, I was extremely taken with Matt’s trip to his family roots in Hungary. Sarvas has written a beautiful novel about self-discovery by dealing with family history. The catalyst for his journey was the attempt to discover the true owner of a valuable painting done by a Hungarian artist, and stolen by a Nazi.

During the legal battle to prove his family ownership, the reader is given a view into the pained realationship between Matt and his father. His happy California existence is tested and his relationship with his All-American fiancée Tracy is sacrificed. The reader sees a renaissance of Matt’s soul as he comes to terms with his Judaism.

Running through this novel is the relationship between Matt and his lawyer Rachel, who represents his heritage and maybe his future.

I was especially moved by his visit to the monument in Budapest, composed of the shoes of those murdered during the Holocaust. The author managed to make this moment sadly relevant to the world today.

This book is quite an accomplishment, combining beautiful writing with history and soul-searching. I really feel honored that I was allowed to review this exquisite novel.

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