"It all blends here unexpectedly: that past and memory with the present and space. . . .] At times, your skin will crawl with pleasure from reading."--Andrzej Stasiuk

Lying in bed in Gotland after a writer's conference, thinking about his compulsive desire to travel--and the uncomfortable tensions this desire creates--the narrator of Salki starts recounting tragic stories of his family's past, detailing their lives, struggles, and fears in twentieth-century Eastern Europe. In these pieces, he investigates various "salkis"--attic rooms where memories and memorabilia are...