THE RESTLESS HUNGARIAN book is being launched
After an epic journey of five years across three continents The Restless Hungarian is being published by Spark Press. The book can be purchased in print and ebook from major online booksellers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google, Powells Books, Indiebound) and select independent bookstores. The audiobook, read by the author, will also be available from Amazon close to the April 16th date of publication.
Come celebrate with us!
In the coming weeks check your inbox for an Eventbrite invitation to a launch event.
Read what other authors are saying about the book…
Weidlinger’s story of his father’s incredible life is both emotionally and intellectually satisfying. Historically pertinent and deeply personal, it is told with searing candor. It is poignant, tragic, and wise. — Kati Marton, author of The Great Escape, Wallenberg: The Incredible True Story of the Man Who Saved the Jews of Budapest, and True Believer: Stalin’s Last American Spy.
The Restless Hungarian is a wonderful book, beautifully written and intricately researched. Through the lens of one extraordinary man, it captures the tragic and exhilarating complexity of an entire century. —Summer Brenner, author of I-5, Nearly Nowhere and My Life in Clothes.
A tender and deeply moving memoir, The Restless Hungarian explores the complicated and, at times, mysterious narratives of Paul Weidlinger’s life as they intersect with the currents of twentieth-century history. Engrossing, affecting, and beautifully written, the book offers important insights into the complexities of memory, Jewish identity, loss, intergenerational trauma, and—most essentially—family, that most luminous structure composed of both pain and love. —Nina Pick, Fellow, Yiddish Book Center’s Oral History Project.
With a son’s longing and a historian’s drive, Tom Weidlinger has written an intensely personal book on the shaky radius of genius. Having come of age at “a time of manifestos” in Europe, structural engineer Paul Weidlinger fled the impending Holocaust and made brilliant contributions to twentieth-century architecture — only to watch a new generation of family ties fray and break in the United States. Weaving intellectual biography with warm, searching memoir, his son’s reckoning is both an important document and an unforgettable read. — Christine Cipriani, coauthor of Cape Cod Modern: Midcentury Architecture and Community on the Outer Cape and author of the forthcoming Ada Louise Huxtable from Norton Books.
A moving and insightful portrait of a brilliant architect and engineer by his son, a seasoned documentary filmmaker. Paul Weidlinger’s trajectory from Hungary through Western Europe and South America to the United States parallels the migration of some of the leading artists and architects of the twentieth century. A colleague of Le Corbusier, Breuer, Moholy-Nagy, Kepes, Noguchi, and Dubuffet, Weidlinger made his contribution as a structural engineer who realized buildings, dams, and sculptures on three continents. This is a biography of a unique visionary who helped create the architecture that defines our times. It is also the saga of a family riven by madness — a compelling read. — Steven Kovacs, professor of cinema, San Francisco State University, author of From Enchantment to Rage: The Story of Surrealist Cinema.
Tom Weidlinger’s probing memoir provides a uniquely personal illumination of twentieth-century political and cultural developments, events, and crises that have affected the lives of millions. Its chapter on the Cold War features his father’s proudly described exchanges with other renowned nuclear strategists, whose ideas Weidlinger himself often found repugnant. It brings to life, vividly and humorously, the way many decisions that profoundly impact our lives are made by fallible and narcissistic human beings, despite their high IQs. And however restless they are to leave their mark on the world, they are no less prone than people of more modest accomplishments to make a mess of family and interpersonal relationships. Superbly written, this remarkably candid biography and introspective memoir is an absolute pleasure to read. — Seyom Brown, author of Faces of Power: Constancy and Change in United States Foreign Policy from Truman to Obama and The Causes and Prevention of War.