The Barn and the Castle

In the early 1950s, in the Polish village of Maljenka, a man is arrested for making an anti-Stalinist remark. But his punishment is not the gulag. Rather, he is taken to a seemingly abandoned barn off the Baltic coast, where four other men are serving out their own sentences outside the purview of the judicial system—where no one can find them.

Despite this abject isolation, the truth of their purpose lies not in the prison itself, but in a decrepit castle, miles away, at the very edge of the sea. There the true horrors lie and their humanity is put to the test.

“The Barn and the Castle” is an exploration of the power of the human spirit in the face of unrelenting hardship, and a song for those lost to the machinations of postwar occupation.

An affecting and harrowing debut … as surreal, horrific or absurd as something out of Kafka or Kundrea, yet flavored with the stark, realistic precision of American Minimalism. —Gina Frangello, best-selling author of “A Life in Men” and “Every Kind of Wanting”

This is the ultimate action story for the thinking reader. —Robin Miura