"You Cannot Forbid the Flower"
An autofiction perspective of the Hungarian Revolution
On first Wednesdays we share post(s) that illustrate Transformative Language Arts in practice.
You Cannot Forbid the Flower by award-winning author and facilitator Elizabeth Lukács Chesla blends multiple genres to tell the story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. A TLAN member with a certificate in TLA Foundations, she recently shared with us that her novella exists, in part, because of her connection with the TLAN community.
Liz says, “I took The Art of Facilitation: Facilitating for Change and Community in the summer of 2020. I expected the course to strengthen my confidence and broaden my toolbox as a facilitator. What I did not expect was how much the course also helped me find my voice and confidence as a writer, both through the rich, layered writing prompts and the genuine, encouraging feedback. Buoyed by the class, I submitted a book proposal to a small, independent press a few months later.”
Here are a few brief excerpts illustrating the author’s use of autofiction to explore a fraught piece of personal history:
Introduction
“It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.”
—Anne Sexton
In Bloom
IN OUR HOUSE, the flowers are everywhere: on tablecloths and doilies, on napkins and dishtowels, on aprons (of course on aprons), on book covers and bookmarks, on bedcovers and pillowcases, on scarves and blouses and boxes. Some are edged with lace; some are embroidered on lace. There are many different flowers—tulips and violets, lilacs and edelweiss—but mostly the peony, the Matyó rose. There are many colors, but mostly rich red on raven black. In traditional Matyó folk art, red is the color of joy.
Even when my parents divorce and our house divides, the flowers remain. Even when my mother forbids us to speak Hungarian, when she stops cooking Hungarian foods, when we no longer wrap szaloncukor candies to hang on the Christmas tree. Even when my father is too far away or too drunk or too broken. Stitched by hand onto linen, cotton, and lace, the flowers are always in bloom.
My Father Is Dying
January 2005
I HAVE DRIVEN three hours, stopping halfway at a rest stop near Scranton to pee. I am only a few months pregnant, but this is baby number three and already my bladder won’t hold. When I arrive, I will take my father to chemo or radiation, stop at the grocery store and pharmacy on the way home, and make him a dinner he will try but mostly fail to eat. Instead, he will smoke, have a shot of brandy. “It’s a little too late to stop now, don’t you think?” he will say. After the first few times, I no longer argue.
My husband will call me when the kids are ready for bed so I can say goodnight. I’ll call him later, when the kids are asleep and my father is passed out in his armchair, and cry. I’ll sleep a few hours, make my father a breakfast he’ll try but mostly fail to eat, run a few more errands, and drive back home. A few days later, my husband will make the same trip. Back and forth we go.
After a while, things start to look better. The tumor in my father’s lung shrinks; my belly grows. We both put on weight, and he starts flirting with the nurses again. Then the cancer metastasizes to my father’s brain, invades it like an army, garrisoning troops in his cerebellum. He starts losing his balance, losing weight, blacks out driving home. The tumor is inoperable, the cancer spreads. It is only a matter of time.
Three Memories I Have of My Father With a Gun, in Reverse Chronological Order
3. STANDING WITH MY father on the ridge, the highest point of his property, the day he teaches me how to shoot. I am twelve and terrified: of the gun, of falling off the edge, of disappointing him.
From this side of the ridge, we can see all five ponds on his property; from the other side, Canada. The lily pads are dime-sized dots in the distance, perfect targets. My father stands behind me to help me adjust the rifle, tells me to aim through the crosshairs. He steadies me, then steps away. I shoot, scream, and stumble a few steps backwards, surprised by the strength of the recoil. My father laughs, tells me I missed by a mile. He lets me try again. He is not disappointed.
2. Watching my father shoot a porcupine he has tracked and cornered in a tree. “They’re killing the trees,” he tells me, showing me a wide stripe where the bark has been chewed almost all the way around the trunk of a sugar maple. One shot, and the porcupine falls, blood trickling from the wound in its side. I am ten and horrified. My father has nearly 200 acres. Do a few dead trees really matter? I know better than to ask, but I can’t swallow the question. It buries with the others in my throat.
1. My father chasing my mother out of the house. She threatened to leave after he punched another hole in the wall; he threatened to get his gun. She holds my little sister, hurries my brother and me out the front door. I am six and terrified. Does he point the gun at her, at us? I only remember the running, in our pajamas, into the car, into the night.
At night, the city glows with candles lit in mourning. The dead, they say, return to their homes on All Saint's Day. My father lights a candle and sets a place at the table for Maria. Dead or alive, her absence still haunts him. He shares his dinner with her ghost.
Elizabeth Lukács Chesla is the author of You Cannot Forbid the Flower (2023), a hybrid novella based on her father’s experiences in World War II and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The daughter of Hungarian refugees and a mother of three, she earned her MA from Columbia University and spent a decade teaching writing and literature in New York City before moving back home to the Philadelphia suburbs to raise her family. There she wrote books on reading, writing, and critical thinking skills for educational publishers; served as an editor for nonprofit organizations; taught online writing and literature courses for homeschoolers; became a yoga teacher specializing in support for hypermobility and trauma; and co-founded a weekly embodied writing group for women. She teaches writing and literature at Gwynedd Mercy University, provides writing and editing services for a wide range of clients, and serves as fiction editor for Consequence Forum. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Quarter After Eight, Another Chicago Magazine, Hungarian Literature Online, and Flare: An Anthology of Chronic Illness Told in Flash Narratives. Learn more here.
Liz is offering her course Telling It Slant: The Art of Autofiction through TLAN beginning June 11, 2025.
Growing Together, Apart: TLAN events & Classes
You can find the full list of classes, free community events, and our annual conference here. Scholarships are available.
08 June 2025 5:00 PM • online • free and open to all!
Telling It Slant: The Art of Autofiction // with Elizabeth Chesla
11 June 2025 • Online • 6 weeks
The Magic Eye and Writing From Body and Place: A Workshop and Reading// with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
26 July 2025 2:00 PM (CDT) • online