Miss Amelia, a reclusive and eccentric woman, lives in a dreary Southern town. When she was younger, she was briefly married, but the union lasted only ten days. One day, a hunchbacked man claiming to be her cousin arrives in town, and Miss Amelia accepts him with open arms. Her life suddenly lights up, she seems happy, and her shop becomes a café where everyone meets in the evenings. But a few years later, her ex-husband, released from prison, returns and disturbs the quiet couple and the whole village, leading to a sad ending. This novel is the inspiration for the film “Bagdad Café”, a vague inspiration because the film is much more cheerful. A story about the sad side of human relationships.
“For the liquor of Miss Amelia has a special quality of its own. It is clean and sharp on the tongue, but once down a man it glows inside him for a long time afterward. And that is not all. It is known that if a message is written with lemon juice on a clean sheet of paper there will be no sign of it. But if the paper is held for a moment to the fire then the letters turn brown and the meaning becomes clear. Imagine that the whisky is the fire and that the message is that which is known only in the soul of a man – then the worth of Miss Amelia’s liquor can be understood. Things that have gone unnoticed, thoughts that have been harboured far back in the dark mind, are suddenly recognized and comprehended.”