She

Reviews

"She knows her craft, building stories efficiently and telling them evocatively. She masterfully weaves contrasting worlds: the Czech-German borderland experience, the urban and the rural, time then and now, current events and myth, the male and female world, reason and intuition, human and animal, childhood and adulthood, a cruel winter and a liberating spring.

Hence the tension and intensity in her text. Hence the knowledge that spills over from fiction straight into life. Everything has its root. Traumas are transcribed from grandparents to parents, from parents to children. Nothing disappears.

That is ultimately the greatest horror that emerges from Petra Klabouchová’s latest novel. The burden of collective memory and the legacy of one’s own ancestors. Pure fatalism. Predestination. The only consolation is that it has always been this way – and that it is a universal experience. And most importantly: that a great piece of fiction can be written on this theme!"

Radim Kopáč, idnes.cz

"Klabouchová unfolds this suffocating atmosphere across several timelines. All the characters in her work carry the weight of ancient tragedies, while catharsis is tied to relatively recent years. Together, they tell an almost forgotten story in which a significant role is played by genetics, wolves, superstitions, and malevolent clergymen, but also faith in goodness and maternal love.

It is the women who are the agents of change, even though for a long time in Šumava they were deemed practically worthless, at least in this family haunted by a curse laid in the mid-nineteenth century. They do not even have a right to their own names – they are simply "They".

The impersonal pronoun encompasses everything they have a right to. Yet according to the entrenched social code, they possess only one thing of value: obedience. In the cramped, almost claustrophobic space of the community, the mountains, and the homesteads, there is neither the time nor the room for defiance

(…)

In terms of genre, the author constructs a dark thriller against a historical, wilderness backdrop – one that transitions seamlessly into horror, slipping now and then into detective fiction. I bet that even the most seasoned reader won’t guess the ending of She.

And that is a quality I always appreciate in books. When you combine that with the author’s refined style and her ability to depict people and events with sharp, uncomplicated directness, there is no doubt that this will be one of the bestselling fiction titles in the Czech Republic this year.

(…)

After the final page, you will probably think: this is a writer who really knows how to describe evil."

Lenka Hloušková, Novinky.cz

"Klabouchová knows how to write and she also knows how to choose topics.

(…) Klabouchová has a flair for building atmosphere and weaving intricate human stories, masterfully creating tension while eliciting deep sympathy for her characters.  (…)

‘Perhaps it is better to leave some things unsaid; there’s enough evil in the world as it is,’ we read at the end of one of the final chapters, and we cannot help but agree. But life’s miseries make for such good reading, don’t they? After all, they allow us to reassure ourselves just how well off we actually are."

Irena Hejdová: Deník N

"Petra Klabouchová has once again come up with an absolutely extraordinary work.

(...) With this book, it’s actually not clear at all what genre you’re reading (...). Detective story, thriller, horror – all thrown together. And it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that Petra Klabouchová has once again written an absolutely magnificent work. Really dark and painful. Full of injustice and suffering passed down from one generation to the next. The author possesses a wonderfully rich command of language that is a joy to read. (...)

Petra Klabouchová’s books are hard to categorize, but absolutely brilliant. They reflect a real past, while allowing the author to give free rein to her imagination."

Lucie Cermanová, Styl života