Born Andrei Perlmutter in lovely, medieval Sibiu, Romania, the author graduated from Lyceum in 1965, and he almost immediately left his homeland and its Communist regime for western freedom. In December of 1989, with a crew from NPR, he returned to his native country to report on the people's revolution that resulted in the execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu, who had held the nation in their dictatorial grip for all of Andrei's adult life. The Hole in the Flag is his very personal account of what he found upon his return to Romania that winter, and again the following June. It is also very revealing of the immense difficulty of finding the truth about what transpires in times of upheaval. What appeared (and was meant to appear) as a spontaneous uprising of the people turned out to be something quite different, most likely a long-planned coup plotted and supported by the KGB, carried out by the military, and staged to present a revolutionary image not only to the outside world, but to those very near to its center. And yet, this coup did engage the populace, particularly young people, and as Codrescu says, there was in fact a true revolution "in people's souls, when they suddenly felt no more fear." Twenty-five years later, I am uncertain what the long-term effects of this overthrow have been. Romania doesn't make the headlines very often, but I'm fairly sure Codrescu has had more to say about the subject since he wrote this book, and I intend to seek it out.
Review written October 2014 ( )