Guiding Stars

About the Book

In GUIDING STARS, Julius Ling built his novel on a crucial period of history: what was life like in the nineteen forties and fifties in Hungary. While guiding us through the dark years of Communism behind the Iron Curtain, revealing the cruel Stalin era, he paints the oppression and peoples' patriotic feelings with flaming colors. But this is not a "Hungarian" story.

In 1955, a delightful love story began to blossom between seventeen-year-old Katie Erdelyi and twenty-year-old Andrew Dombrady, but cruel events had torn them apart.

Throughout the life of Andrew Dombrady (the main character, a freedom-fighter hero), Julius Ling paints the 1956 Hungarian revolution in vivid and unforgettable color. He brings to the forefront the heroic struggle, the human drama and the shocking lesson for a seemingly impossible dreamÑfreedom, sharing with us the few days of unforgettable but bittersweet victory, of which the betraying counterattack followed. The Soviet revenge was horrendous. Budapest was in flames, the country in chaos. People's dream were shattered, then the Soviets began to round up the freedom-fighters to deport them to Siberia. In order to escape deportation, Andrew had to leave in a hurry- without having a chance to say good-bye to Katie, his beautiful love. They simply lost each other...

From here the story leaves Budapest and takes Andrew to Canada, Katie to Australia. Feeling that finding each other again is probably hopeless, in their struggle for survival the question pops up from time to time: is it worthwhile going on living? Yet, despite the harsh years, the two lost souls keep searching for one another. This is one of the most moving and heartrending love stories ever written.

Julius Ling spins the threads of the story between three continents with a skill of a magician. Chapter after chapter, adventures and shocking events follow one another. The book is so exciting that it glues the reader to the pages, making it impossible to put it down. The powerful conclusion puts the cap on this amazing Canadian story -it thoroughly wins the hearts of the readers. They feel that they're actually there with them, living and experiencing every moment of Andrew's and Katie's exciting story.

Naturally the erotic scene is not missing- nor should it be missing-from a modern love story. But it is not just for playing with a fashionable subject; rather it is an integral part of their innermost human feelings. It is written from their souls with such a pure and powerful force that portraying true love in this manner-sad to say-is slowly fading out from our current literature.

There is a moving passage in Hemingway's book: FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, when two lovers find each other. In GUIDING STARS, there is no moving episode that would not match, or even surpass Hemingway's novel, either in power or poetic beauty.

Dear Mr. Ling,
I am happy to inform you that the flame of Guiding Stars has not died out from the sky of the Hungarian literature.
By a qualified jury, your book has been awarded with the honorary title of the second best novel in the last decade of the twentieth century. (Both fellow compatriots are living abroad.) The first title went to K. T. "Triology of the Danube," which itself indicates the high level of the field (milieu) in which your work had been recognized. The success will remain engraved forever.
Accept my sincere congratulations!

Gyula Nyitrai
Chief Editor
NEMZETOR (Guard of the Nation newspaper)
Budapest, Hungary

About the Author

There is a resemblance between Julius Ling and Andrew Dombrady, the central character in GUIDING STARS. In 1956, Mr. Ling and his wife were Hungarian refugees, landing in Australia, knowing no more than "yes" and "no" in English.

After starting at the bottom, Mr. Ling worked as a machine operator at the Commonwealth Bureau of Statistics in Canberra, where he learned some English. In 1966, he and his wife emigrated to Canada, and worked at Statistics Canada, in Ottawa.

Mr. Ling is now retired and living in Victoria, British Columbia.

This is his first novel in English.