The Odyssey Bookshop: Dean Cycon

Join us on Thursday, March 28 at 7 PM as Dean Cycon presents his novel, Finding Home (Hungary 1945.) He will be  joined by special guests, noted Klezmer musicians Jason Ditzian (clarinet) and Bea Carlson (accordion) of Myrtle Street Klezmer.

About the Book

For nine months in Auschwitz, eighteen-year-old Eva Fleiss clung to sanity by playing piano on imaginary keyboards. After liberation, Eva and the five remaining Jews of Laszlo, Hungary, journey home, seeking to restart their lives. Yet the town that deported them is not ready to embrace their return. Their former neighbors and friends resist relinquishing their newfound status and property, and they struggle with their roles as perpetrators, enablers, and bystanders during the Holocaust.

Longing for connection to her old life, Eva agrees to clean her former home, now the mayor's home, in return for practice time on her piano. As her profound experiences allow her to access music at a depth she didn't know existed, Eva's performances begin to affect those around her-with unexpected consequences.

Finding Home (Hungary, 1945) is the first novel to explore the complex emotional, moral and economic dynamics of Jewish concentration camp survivors trying to return to their hometown after the war, from the point of view of the returnees and the townspeople. 

About the Author

Dean Cycon is a local author, lawyer, human rights advocate and social entrepreneur.