The blending of the two loves, one informed by cross-cultural discoveries and humorous bumblings, the other wonderfully human in its boy-meets-girl portraiture, invites the reader to savor all things Slovak. They range from food to castles, officious bureaucrats to outdoor fairs, beery picnics to chasing girls on Easter Day Two, Slovak words with no vowels to cemeteries aglow with candles "like stilled and silent seas of light, as if someone pulled the stars down and clustered the constellations among the stone graves".
