Helimadoe

An excellent psychological novel by Jaroslav Havlíček about growing up, love and loss (and more)

Helimadoe is an acronym formed from the first syllables of the names of the five daughters of the country doctor Hanzelín – Helena, Lidmila, Marie, Dora and Ema.

A middle-class family of civil servants moves to Staré Hrady. Their thirteen-year-old son, Emil, falls seriously ill and, despite his mother's disapproval, the local eccentric Dr Hanzelín becomes his attending physician. The doctor has five daughters, four of whom he puts to work on strenuous tasks at home and in the fields. Emil begins to visit them more and more often, experiencing hardships and pleasures he had never even dreamed of…

The last completed work by Jaroslav Havlíček, the most important Czech representative of psychological prose, brilliantly narrated by Václav Knop.