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Abigail by Magda Szabo was published in Hungarian in 1970 and translated into English by Len Rix only in 2020. If only translation of her oeuvre can be speeded up! Readers who have read The Door will likely agree with me.

Abigail is a coming of age story set in Hungary during World War Two between September 1943 and March 1944. Gina (Georgina Vitay), a 14-year-old motherless girl, is suddenly uprooted from her privileged, upper social class life in Budapest, and sent to a very strict religious boarding school, Bishop Matula Academy, in Arkod located on the Eastern border of Hungary. Gina’s father, a General in the Hungarian army, is unable to tell her his reasons for first packing her governess back home to France and then banishing Gina to the boondocks, away from adoring relatives and a dashing Lieutenant admirer whom he and the governess both dislike. Gina and the General share a loving and close father-daughter relationship; thus their leave-taking was heartbreaking to read.

Although well known as the first institution of pedagogic excellence for female students in Hungary, Matula is an oppressive, no-nonsense fortress, where every student is made to dress alike, fill all waking hours with studies and meaningful work, obey every rule or risk punishment and even expulsion. However, the girls cope by inventing their own traditions, trading private jokes, and having their own fun. Unsurprisingly, being the bright, headstrong, and impetuous teenager that she is, Gina gets into trouble right from the beginning. Her gravest transgression is to bust a long-standing tradition, which makes her public enemy number one among the fifth level girls. Oh, the girls� brand of relational aggression toward Gina is vicious. As in The Door and Iza’s Ballad, Szabo’s writing in Abigail revealed a wealth of psychological insight into female relationships � the ties that bind are as strong as the destructive potential that resides in misplaced expectations and lapses in the language of love.

How will Gina survive missing her father and the prolonged ostracism of her schoolmates? Much more is at stake for Gina than her young mind can comprehend. Yet, there is apparently hope for all Matula girls in despair. In the school compound is Abigail, a neoclassical stone sculpture of a woman holding a ground stone pitcher. The girls hail Abigail as a miracle worker, an angel who comes to the rescue of any student who unburdens her cares to her. Of course, Gina regards this claim with total contempt. Will she need Abigail’s help? Is Abigail a figment of the imagination? If she is real, who is she? Unraveling the mystery of Abigail quickens the pulse of this story.

Abigail sets a teenage girl’s petty fights against the menace and danger of WW2 where death and annihilation are stark realities. Szabo told a gripping story that had me holding my breath in several places. I read this with my heart in my mouth as the suspense built up, gathered momentum, and did not let up until the very last word. I needed to know if Gina would find deliverance from the problems she has created for herself as well as from enemies more fearsome than her rejecting schoolmates.

Readers who enjoy stories about boarding schools and the eccentricities that take place behind their closed doors as well as stories that unravel the love-hate relationship between students and their teachers are likely to love this novel. If I had read this when I was younger, I would have appreciated it more. Nonetheless, this is no shallow boarding school tale and well worth the time.

That the impending destruction is hidden from the understanding of school-aged teens wrapped up in their own dreams lent this story its poignancy. Hitler’s advances rocked the carefree world of a group of adolescent girls. For them, the implications of a world war seem remote given their more immediate preoccupation with peer relationships, fantasy about romance and marriage, including matchmaking their teachers. All this minutiae of day-to-day life is dwarfed by the realities of war, which hit home personally for some of them. The lives of the girls in Matula, Gina’s especially, are irrevocably changed.

Read Abigail. Much awaits the reader within the fortified walls of the Bishop Matula Academy.

I had the joy and privilege of reading this book with the Obscure Group. This erudite group offered much insight into the history of Hungary in WW2, background to Szabo's life, the meanings of Hungarian names, character and plot development. I learned so much from them. Special thanks to Ken Craft who led this motley crew for his tiptop organization of our discussion schedules.