SOURCE: A review of Headed for the Blues: A Memoir with Ten Stories, in Observer, February, 1998, p. 15.

In the following review, Shawcross praises Škvorecký's portrayal of Czechoslovakia's years of dictatorship in Headed for the Blues.

Josef Škvorecký is one of the great Czech writers of the cruel post-war Communist years, His new book Headed for the Blues does not disappoint. Subtitled ‘a memoir with ten stories,’ it is in fact several. All, of course, describe aspects of the grim dogmas that descended on Czechoslovakia after the Soviet occupation of 1945, the Soviet-inspired Communist coup of 1948, and the 20 years of Stalinist and post-Stalinist dictatorship which followed until the brief sprint towards ‘socialism with a human face’ led by Alexander Dubcek in 1968, which ended with the Soviet invasion, renewed occupation and 20 more years of dictatorship even more depressing than the first, which only ended after the fall of...