An Exclusive Love: A Memoir

A moving and topical love story about a young woman who seeks to unravel the mysteries of her grandparents’ tragic decision.

One Sunday morning in October, Istvan and his wife Vera start their day as usual. They tidy their house; Vera makes a festive cake to put in the freezer and cuts fresh roses for a vase in the living room. That evening, after nearly fifty years of marriage, they lie down in their bed and take their own lives. Having survived the tumult of twentieth-century Europe and after raising a family together, they could not accept the words ‘until death do us part’.

While sifting through the fragments of the family history in an attempt to understand this glamorous and enigmatic couple, their granddaughter Johanna Adorjan imagines their final day. Amid the family stories and portraits by friends, she dares to give voice to their never-mentioned experiences in the Holocaust and their escape from Hungary during the uprising of 1956.