Budapest, 1991. Shortly after the fall of communism, Ilona received the telephone she’d been denied due to her husband’s involvement in the 1956 uprising. Later, her photographer son, Emil, who had escaped to America, returns with his wife and daughter. His desire to create an exhibit documenting Hungary’s history clashes with people’s fear of reprisals and the newly emerging capitalism. Budapest Noir: Ilona Gets a Phone is loosely based on a woman Alison Langley met in Budapest. This, her debut novel and a finalist for the 2022 Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Prize, will tug at your heartstrings as the characters struggle to reclaim the lives they’ve been denied.
Cameron: Tell us how this book came about.
Alison: I was a journalist stationed in Budapest, Hungary, from 1990 to 1994. I wrote the first chapter 20 years ago, very loosely based on a passive-aggressive Hungarian woman I met. She was such a character that I wanted to write about her, but I didn’t have much of a story to tell. Later, I had time to think about her. If she were 61 in 1991, then she would have been born in 1930, and would have lived through the war and Hungary’s 1956 uprising. Those experiences would have shaped Ilona’s character, giving me my story.
Like Novel Incubator graduates Hesse Phillips and Juliet Faithfull, you were a finalist for the Irish Writers Centre (IWC) prize, yet you didn’t get an agent?
Prize finalists meet with a roomful of agents (because of COVID, we met online). All of them told me I wrote beautifully, but they couldn’t sell the book. The American agents said it wasn’t American enough. The agents from Ireland and the UK said it was too Eastern European.
After hosting a “wake” for the book, I took a writing class so I could author a “crass, commercial book” [Cam’s note: Like the plot of American Fiction!] and course instructor David Butler recommended I query Dedalus Books, who immediately signed my book. Dedalus specializes in European books.
You also narrated your own audiobook!
Although my publisher held the audiobook rights, they had no plans to produce one. I have a friend who is dyslexic and relies on audiobooks to read, so it was important to me to have an audiobook. Dedalus allowed me to produce my own, at my own expense. I bartered with a sound engineer. I’m really glad I had the opportunity, especially since I could add a few bits that the editor had deleted. It’s the ‘writer’s cut.’
I read both the paperback and the audiobook, and loved the highly visceral recording. You even gave listeners an extra chapter! Ilona, having lived in a kastély (castle) as a child, reminded me of A Gentleman in Moscow. Had you seen many examples of this in Hungary?
Yes. In the 1990s, the new Hungarian government privatized the properties that the Soviets had seized. It was a big dilemma because the property had been stolen from these families, but the communists turned them into orphanages, old folks’ homes, and such. How do you return an orphanage to a family? What happens to the kids? Or the elderly?
One of the agents who read my manuscript said she found the idea that a Hungarian woman had rights to a kastély hard to believe. In this case, the truth is stranger than fiction.
Your visual art exhibit scene deeply moved me. You carried me from joy to sadness, and back again. I had to stop to catch my breath! Your career as a journalist must have helped.
I’m glad you liked it. I had to narrate that chapter on the audiobook five times. It was really emotional. As a journalist, I learned to be fair to the evidence and portray all aspects of my characters. I also knew how to research, and as part of that, I’d heard many raw, firsthand accounts of the ’56 uprising. As a novelist, I wanted to be true to Emil’s emotions and capture what he would have created and how he would have seen his subject. But it had to be through Ilona’s POV.
Michelle Hoover often speaks about Charles Baxter’s concept of a “Captain Happen” as a character foil. You have two: Erzsébet, Ilona’s best friend, and István, Emil’s childhood friend.
It wasn’t a conscious choice, but it was necessary. Ilona was cold, guarded, and tense, so I made Erzsi big-hearted and open. It gives readers an emotional break. You can also play with the contrasts, show how different personalities react to a situation. Like: Ilona gets upset when her American daughter-in-law eschews sugar, but Erzsi just shrugs it off.
Any advice for new writers?
One about publishing and the other about writing: If someone tells you five times that your story isn’t marketable, believe them, but persevere; don’t give up. That’s why I’m so grateful to small presses for giving me the chance to publish my work. Small houses can afford to take chances on books that the big houses won’t touch. We readers are all the richer for it.
As for writing advice: You can’t edit a blank page. Write, learn by doing, and then revise extensively. Additionally, learn the craft by reading good books and analyzing what other writers do. If you write literary fiction, read other literary novels. If you write memoir, read other memoirs. Analyze while you are reading how they have gotten out of sticky writing situations.
Thank you for this interview, for teaching me so much about Hungary, and for taking me on such an emotional ride.
Alison Langley was a former foreign correspondent with extensive experience covering events across Europe for publications like The Guardian, The New York Times, Dow Jones News Wires, and Deutsche Welle. From 1990 to 1994, Langley freelanced for The Wall Street Journal Europe in Budapest, where Ilona is set. Her story, “The Date,” was shortlisted for the Bournemouth Writing Prize, and a collection of her work can be read in Psychedelic Yodelling, Vol. 1. Langley divides her time between the Swiss Alps and Brooklyn. She also runs a writing retreat. Find out more at https://alisonlangley.eu, on Facebook, Instagram, or X.
