I was very moved by FATHERLAND: A Family History. Nina Bunjevac’s painstakingly constructed and sincere telling of her family’s history and their part in the history of the world at large makes for quite the book to kick off the year. Her storytelling, art and subtle sardonic tone make this book sing.

FATHERLAND plays out in two major parts. The story begins with Nina as a baby in Canada. Bunjevac’s mother sticks to a nightly routine, much like any other mother of three. She starts by laying down her youngest, Nina, and then her older son, and even her older daughter. Then, Nina’s mother would start the painstaking process of bomb-proofing the house. It is this nightly activity that makes us ask the obvious question: Why did this woman have to bomb-proof her house? Who would be after her? Who would want to kill her and her children?

"Nina Bunjevac’s painstakingly constructed and sincere telling of her family’s history and their part in the history of the world at large makes for quite the book to kick off the year."

After a brief introduction to this ritual, readers are introduced to Nina’s father. He seems hardened, intimidating, maybe without any sense of real emotion. This, I have to add, is a surface observation --- to make us fearful for the safety of Nina, her mother, and her siblings. We then see the aftermath of her mother’s carefully planned escape from Canada to Yugoslavia, their native country. Nina tells the story of family as best she knows it in Part 1: Her youth, filled with her mother’s personal sufferings, up until the death of her father.

Part 2, however, starts with Nina’s father’s beginnings. Readers are given the story dating back as far as Nina could accurately research. Her great-grandparents, grandparents, everything they had to do in order to survive on the major European fronts of both World Wars, and the impact of this period on Nina’s father. This is where Bunjevac details the origins of her family’s painful history. I would say more here, if not for spoilers, but rest assured that by the work’s conclusion, most any reader will have sympathy for Nina’s father, for whom the work is written.

I read this book over a cup of coffee among strangers, and I may have stopped to adore Nina’s lines and shading rather vocally. I was responding to her details with the same admiration a child might respond to a happy Disney ending. I fawned over the lines and textures, letting out a loud “Oh my,” or “Good gracious, that’s beautiful!” It was then that I tried my best to keep quiet. I couldn’t, and from the corners of my eyes observed the abrupt departure of those seated around me.