Some secrets cannot be hidden even by the thickest layer... A young Czech author has written a fresh novel set in the British fishing town of Whitby in Yorkshire during the 1950s. The main character, Irving, is a twenty-year-old gay man whose parents die shortly one after the other. Irving's encounter with the rest of his family at the funeral awakens memories that the young man has long tried to 'wallpaper over'... Manchester in the 1950s and 60s was certainly not the freest city for a reflective young man like Irving. He can't even leave his apartment without being watched by the eyes of curious neighbors – potential informants, and those depressive owls just won't fly off his weary shoulders... This craftily brilliant monological prose has the potential to make a mark in the field of young Czech literature: the gradual revelation of secrets and troubled events from the narrator's past rivals the methods of the classic British detective school, the peculiarity of the central character is a source of ongoing surprises, and the strong and believable emotions related to different characters and their complex relationships are delivered with entomological precision. Ema Labudová won the Literary Prize of the Book Club 2019 for her book Tapetář.
