Jiří Klobouk

A fifty-year-old man, named Harley Davidson, has suffered since puberty from a vivid fantasy, a condition not as rare as it might seem: alongside reality, which he perceives accurately, he has created for himself a second, parallel world of dreams.

The author, formerly a jazz pianist, exchanged the piano keyboard for a typewriter to write a novel inspired by the flow of jazz improvisation. The book explores the theme of a dysfunctional marriage. Divided into four parts: Dawn, Father, Mother, Dusk. The story (without an actual story) takes place in one day in an old Moravian town when the daughter participates in a school celebration.

Motto:
The period of reconciliation between the free world and the world of tyranny, which we are witnessing at present, is the most tragic epoch in the history of mankind. We state this with experienced voices. We have lived with communism for endless decades; we’ve been the witnesses and victims, the observers and observed of each day of tyranny. These are the days and lives of executioner butchers ruthlessly practising their craft. How sad it is that this exquisite world has to continue to suffer through the trials of the endless terrors and hardships of war. What a pity our testimony must be substantiated by further barbarities of our common enemy. America! Be brave tomorrow! We wouldn’t survive your humiliation and tears.

from "Emigrants" (1975)