Parasol Against the Axe

A tale of competitive friendship, elastic storytelling, and the meddling influence of a city called Prague.

In Helen Oyeyemi’s joyous new novel, the Czech capital is a living thing—one that can let you in or spit you out.

For reasons of her own, Hero Tojosoa accepts an invitation she was half expected to decline, and finds herself in Prague on a bachelorette weekend hosted by her estranged friend, Sofie Cibulkova. Little does she know she’s arrived in a city with a penchant for playing tricks on the unsuspecting. A book Hero has brought with her seems to be warping her mind: the text changes depending on when it’s being read and who’s doing the reading, revealing startling new sto­ries of fictional Praguers past and present. Un­invited companions appear at bachelorette activities and at city landmarks, offering opin­ions, humor, and even a taste of treachery. When a third woman from Hero and Sofie’s past ap­pears unexpectedly, the tensions between the friends’ different accounts of the past reach a new level.

An adventurous, kaleidoscopic novel, Parasol Against the Axe considers the lines between il­lusion and delusion, fact and interpretation, and weighs the risks of attaching too firmly to the stories of a place, or a person, or a shared his­tory. How much is a tale influenced by its reader, or vice versa? And finally, in a battle between friends, is it better to be the parasol or the axe?

Hardcover | 272 pages | 6.22" x 9.30"