The End Of A Family Story

The End of a Family Story (1999) – Péter Nádas
Published by Jonathan Cape | ISBN: 9780224059558
Condition: Near Fine (emotionally fragile, physically excellent)
Offered with mild suspicion and great affection by: Crappy Old Books

Welcome to The End of a Family Story, a novel in which memory misbehaves, history sulks in the corner, and family life unfolds under the watchful, unblinking eye of the state. Péter Nádas takes the idea of “family saga” and threads it through politics, secrets, and unreliable recollection, then calmly invites you to make sense of it all. It’s like trying to reconstruct your childhood from half-heard anecdotes, missing photographs, and that one relative who always says, “It wasn’t like that at all.”

This is not a cosy, fireside story where everyone learns a lesson and hugs at the end. Think more: generations of Hungarians attempting to live, love, and remember while history keeps rearranging the furniture. Narratives overlap, time slips, and people recall events that may or may not have happened exactly that way. Perfect for readers who enjoy novels where you are gently conscripted into active duty as Chief Meaning-Maker.

About this particular copy

Condition is Near Fine, which in the peculiar dialect of the book trade means: “Basically new, but we are morally obliged to mention one tiny flaw in case you own a magnifying glass and a grudge.”

• The book itself is in near new condition: clean, tight, and looking faintly offended at having been described as “used.”

• The pages are crisp and fresh, ready for you to crease them emotionally if not physically.

• The dust jacket (if present) is generally sharp, tidy and unruffled, like someone who has survived a complicated past and now works in middle management.

The one notable blemish in its otherwise excellent existence:

• The spine has slightly faded. Just a whisper. A suggestion. A gentle sun-kissed lightening, as if the book once stood on a shelf where daylight dared to intrude. We like to think of it as a subtle visual metaphor for the erosion of personal and political memory over time. You can also just think of it as “a bit lighter than the front.”

There are no ghastly coffee rings, no frantic annotations from a tortured undergrad, and no mystery stains of unknown provenance. If there’s a previous owner’s name inside, they’ve been discreet about it, as if they understood this story is shared property anyway.

What’s going on inside?

Inside you’ll find:

• A wonderfully intricate tale of family, memory, and repression, where storytelling itself is under suspicion.

• Fragments of anecdotes and recollections that loop and overlap, like relatives at a wake contradicting each other politely.

• The sense that history isn’t just something that happens to people – it shuffles into the living room, sits on the sofa, and refuses to leave.

• Prose that is intelligent, layered, and occasionally disorienting in the best possible way – like wandering round a house you know well, only to find an extra door.

It’s the sort of novel that expects you to pay attention. In return it offers a rich, unsettling, and absurdly human portrait of people trying to build a life under conditions that make honesty risky and memory negotiable.

Why you might actually want this

• For the literary masochist: You like books that make you work a bit. You consider linear narratives “too mainstream.”

• For the Central/Eastern Europe obsessive: You’ve read all the usual titles and want something that digs deeper into the inner lives behind the slogans.

• For the family-drama enthusiast: You know that most family stories are political even when nobody dares say so out loud.

• For the bookshelf aesthete: Jonathan Cape hardbacks/editions were built to look like they know things. This one still does—just with a slightly lighter spine, like it’s been to therapy.

Also: a Near Fine copy with only a gently faded spine has that sweet spot of “nice enough to cherish, not so pristine you’re scared to read it without gloves.” Which is exactly where Crappy Old Books likes to operate.

About Crappy Old Books

At Crappy Old Books, we specialise in volumes that arrive in almost suspiciously good condition, only to reveal one small, forgivably human flaw—like a faded spine, a dog-eared corner, or an ex-libris sticker from someone who believed in library etiquette. We take these books in, point out their imperfections with affectionate honesty, and send them off to new readers who aren’t terrified of the concept of “Second-hand.”

So if you fancy a Near Fine copy of a modern classic about memory, family, and the state—slightly sun-faded on the spine, like history itself—this edition of The End of a Family Story by Péter Nádas is quietly waiting for its next reader.

It remembers more than it lets on.

Keep browsing: See more Fiction books Other books by Peter Nadas