Kati Marton takes the reader on an exciting journey through her parents' lives behind the Iron Curtain in Hungary--in essentially a memoir format, which mostly works. Marton's educated, worldy parents are writers for AP and UP who speak several languages and had enjoyed mostly privileged upbringings before World War II and their Jewish backgrounds made the world much more difficult for them. They served in the Hungarian resistance during WWII, and later are targeted by the Communist leaders of Hungary as "enemies of the people," mostly because of their intellectualism, association with Westerners living in Hungary, and unwillingness to readily succumb to the "comrade-ship" surrounding them. Survivors of near constant surveillance, as well as one- to two-year prison terms in Fo Utca, a dank prison in the heart of Budapest, the elder Martons ultimately triumph as happy suburbanites in the D.C. area, where they end up shortly after managing to exit Hungary in 1957. Kati, the younger of two sisters, researched much of her parents' story through AVO files made available to her only in the mid- to late 2000s, and also through some FBI files (as her parents were considered somewhat suspicious by both the Communists and Americans for a time). A younger brother was born to the family about a year after their arrival in America--Andrew Thomas Marton-- and Kati herself has led an interesting life, having worked as an ABC News foreign correspondent and having married, first, Peter Jennings, and second, Richard Holbrooke (recently deceased).

I learned a great deal about Hungary under Communist rule in reading this book, while at the same time it was almost a voyeuristic look at Kati Marton's very personal journey to discover the "truth" about her parents' earlier lives.