Peter Petro London: Garnett, This book is the sequel to Rivers of Babylon , which as I noted in my review was the perfect antidote to the uplifting, wholesome, and charming portrait of Slovakia in my forthcoming memoir.
The title refers to the frequently seen stations of wooden booths throughout Slovakia offering toilets, beer, and in this particular novel, prostitution.
Several of the characters, who have continued on from the last story, find themselves slowly squeezed out of their meagerly paid positions in the wooden village as the transitions to the new post-communist economy move faster than they can adapt to. His plywood lamps are making a splash in Europe, so he decides to return to his now-capitalist homeland to see if he can set up a factory.
One of the most hilarious scenes of the book recounts his attempts to persuade his sister and brother-in-law to go into business with him, which will require moving to Bratislava; they persist in an obviously ill-fated plan to earn a fortune off a boutique in their remote mountain town.
Ultimately giving up on Slovakia, Martin departs and his story concludes, a bit bizarrely, with a trip to a tiny Pacific island to propose marriage to his Jewish-American anthropologist lover. Outraged that a prostitute should have right of refusal, he assaults her in the most brutal scene of a fairly brutal book. It is frequently vile, vulgar, and sickening. It is also frequently funny, even light-hearted. He took a swig of vodka from a hip-flask in his pocket.
