Sandor Tomin’s heroic anti-addiction odyssey will take you to a stunning world of realism that has been missing from today’s literature for decades. At a time when no best-seller can possibly be imagined without highly fictive sex, crime, fantasy scenes or secret codes, the author of 100 Days undertakes to simply document the events of his working days while giving up cigarette smoking in a remote corner of Western Asia. His unpretentious claim that he has only written a diary about quitting smoking is more than an understatement. As the journal unfolds, his natural talent for story-telling will turn stiff documentary into a plausible, fiction-like saga, real-life characters into novel-like heroes and plain, monotonous backgrounds into fascinating, meaningful landscapes.

His basic idea that a drastic change of environment may result in a change of mindset that would help an individual cope with quitting smoking, drinking or whatever bad habits he or she might have is only part of the story. Apart from a potential anti-smoking recipe, the book will also bring the reader a broader view on life as he or she, along with the author, is day by day exposed to new experiences with people of different nationalities in a variety of life situations. Mr. Tomin’s description of daily life at the construction site of a small Hungarian company subcontracted by a huge American corporation to build part of its new oil facility in Western Kazakhstan offers a panoramic view of how different cultures clash in a highly operative situation. The social spectroscope only further widens by the fact that the country was formerly controlled by the Russians, who still exert a major influence on the economic development of the area as well as the people’s minds. Consequently, the text reveals delightful everyday manifestations of intercultural communication between Kazakhs, Russians, Hungarians, Americans and other nationalities in all possible combinations. As a Hungarian-American with a degree in Russian studies, Mr. Tomin describes those manifestations with a great sense of humor, bridging enormous cultural gaps in his rhetoric while preserving a firm American standpoint throughout the entire book. “100 Days” is realistic but entertaining, loaded with everyday scenes that are sadly true but hilariously comical, written in a style that is politically correct and outrageously revealing at the same time.

You may purchase the book for $10: