Beyond the chestnut trees /

Memories of a 1930s Prague adolescence, 1939 flight to France, and subsequent emigration to America--interwoven with vignettes from Bauer's return to Prague 40 years later. Virtually the first stop on Bauer's homecoming-journey is the estate where she grew up as part of a wealthy, artistic, well-established family--an estate that has now been divided into collective farms, with the ""paradise"" park of Bauer's childhood now ""weeds, rubble, chickens, rabbits, a lone cow grazing."" These new impressions alternate with recollections of the grand 1930s life: governesses, balls, music, teenage crushes, and only a trace of outsider uneasiness. (""Supposedly we were Jews, but not really. . ."") Bauer looks up old friends from school days; she recalls her great love (unconsummated) for a young artist, dead since 1950--whose postwar letter she failed to answer. (""In my mind I talk to Karel: 'I know that I should have answered you. . . it was so stupid to feel threatened in my marriage and new motherhood.' "") There's a visit to the opera with old/new friends, an intriguing bit of sociology: ""the theaters and operas are always sold out,"" says Natasha--while there's little interest in TV or movies (subject to greater governmental control). But, as the visit continues, Bauer's memories begin to dominate: the family's move to France; more perilous moves, after 1939, to Spain and Portugal (where Bauer married anti-Nazi hero Robert); the arrival in America, with grim moments on Ellis Island; her parents' ups and downs in New York City and Woodstock--where they found cultural joy but little real peace (severe depression for Father); rough times for Robert via McCarthyism. And Bauer's final sentiment is that her own Woodstock life now contains the past: ""Time has no boundaries; the past keeps flowing into the present. . . ."" Too fragmented to generate steady involvement, with Bauer herself a fuzzy presence--but an evocative, unassuming memoir, rich in past/present interplay. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.