Lost Inside the Happy Noise

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Summary: Buy this book while you can!
Review: I was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy of Lost Inside the Happy Noise, and I couldn't put it down until I read the last word. Mr. Lukach has created a world that completely envelops the reader . . . Once you enter his head, you can't (and don't want to) leave it. This (true?) story of a young man's search for happiness in a place and time far removed from the everyday, ordinary life is moving in its ability to make you feel everything all at once--the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, and the just plain surreal. It is simultaneously intoxicating and sobering; bittersweet and deliriously happy. I haven't decided yet whether it's a dreamlike depiction of stark reality, or a stark illustration of the power of a dreamed life. Either way, it touches a basic human chord on many levels, and I look forward to hearing more from Mr. Lukach.

Rating:
Summary: Lost in Lost Inside The Happy Noise
Review: Jim Lukach's book took me far, far away, lost in the moment of his words and stories. Jim has a way of taking the reader to Slovakia with him; I could smell the coal dust in the air and hear the trains rattling past. The crisp fall days were mixed with the warmth of the people. Jim puts a bit of himself in every story, and holds nothing back - I felt his emotions as if he were telling me in person. I was there.

I look forward to his next novel.

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Summary: How do you say "Rosebud" in Slovak?
Review: Maybe it's an exaggeration, but I think everyone's secretly got a "Rosebud" - a time and a place in the past where we covertly retreat to for sustenance. For Jim Lukach, it's clear his "Rosebud" is Slovakia after the fall of the Berlin Wall. His book, "Lost Inside the Noise," brilliantly captures his time in Eastern Europe as an American of Slovak ancestry returning to his roots to teach English to a new generation. It's a great premise that delivers: a descendent of ones who left long ago meets the descendents of those who remained. And there's much to talk about. But what makes the book especially interesting, though, is the way he observes and describes life around him down to the minutest detail. Perhaps it's an irony, but as an American writer, he chronicles life in post-communist Eastern Europe with the same soul-searching and longing one is used to reading among Eastern European writers themselves. Did he pick it up there, or was this writer's sensitivity always in him? Hard to say, but his book is definitely worth the trip.