Russian born Amer. Writer Keith Gessen's Novel A TERRIBLE COUNTRY Written with Wit

Keith Gessen (b Moscow, Soviet Union 1975) is an Amer. author, journalist, and Prof. of journalism at Columbia.  Born Konstantin Alexandrovich Gess to Jewish parents, moved with his family to the US in 1981.  Gessen's proficiency in Russian allots him a profession in translation and an accessibility to Russian life, contemporary & historical found entrenched in his novel "A Terrible Country."  Gessen's life is embedded in the main character Andrysushik, (Andrei) an Amer. grad. student who moved to Amer. with his Jewish parents to the States as a young boy leaving behind his maternal grandmother,  He returns to Russia to care for in his elderly, dependent grandma.  Andrei is floundering as an assoc. prof. when his older brother Dima calls him to return to care for their grandmother.  Without a strong anchor, or financial security in the States, he returns to a nostalgic Russia for which he is desperately wants to feel current and relevant.  Gessen's writing is charming, complex, convoluted and enticing.  It lacks an elucidating conviction on Russian politics, the arts and its history.  Andrei quest to gain access into a hockey game, find a social network and comprehend the workings of how things now work in Russia is intriguing.  Andrei's loving attention to his grandma for whom "everyone she knows is dead" and his plight to fit in and find love make him an ingratiating and often irritating character.  Andrei succeeds in finding a comradeship of sorts with fellow hockey players, political activists, and in getting arrested & released.  But despite his warning not to saying anything if arrested, his blabbering leads to the arrest & severe sentencing of his Russian former friends.  Through the long bitter winters and interwoven social commentary & historical background, the reader becomes somewhat wore down much like "The frowns on the the faces of people wore you down.  The lies on the television too, after a while, wore you down."  Andrei is searching for the Soviet Union from his childhood memories and believes his compatriots are nostalgic for the same era.  An ex-pat living in the same complex comments to Andrei "'You seek to know Russian history.'  I did know Russian history, I thought.  And it wasn't good."  His grandmother tells him it's a terrible country and he ought to leave.  The meandering & mired plot is written in with such a beguiling hand had "War & Peace" a similar style, reading would be more palatable.  Gessen's ambitious intent is to paint Russia with a broad stroke for its people, heritage and way of life.  This is oftentimes overwhelming, but in a comforting & congenial manner from which the reader will glean an inkling for being back in the U.S.S.R. and feeling lucky they are.

INDELICACY Amina Cain's Enigmatic Hypnotic Novel Many Will Savor, Some Not

INDELICACY is an unusual, hypnotic, enigmatic novel many will find artful but I'm doubtful it will be favored by the masses.  The heroine with whom I'm inexplicably drawn is herself drawn to the arts.  Her name, Vitoria, eludes the reader for the most part & remains unbeknownst for most of the novel.  Vitoria is a young woman who toils cleaning toilets in an unnamed art museum.  Her eyes linger on the paintings inside and for what may lie waiting should she have the means to pursue her heart's desires.  Vitoria is mesmerized by paintings; ballet and besotted with furtively writing down her observations.  The time period is unclear, and the country baffling.  The novel could be set in a contemporary or Victorian era and located on either American or European shores.  Many specifics are left intriguingly ambiguous.  Her fortuitous encounter with a wealthy young man while working at the museum leads to a hasty marriage in which she's not sure.  The marriage provides financial security & the luxury to pursue or not, her inclinations.   Having gotten her wish to indulge her fancies she pursues dance class, extravagant clothes and liberation from mundane work, happiness somehow eludes her.  Perhaps, she can be compared to "Hamilton" and never be satisfied.  The unnamed husband confronts Vitoria after having an affair with the beautiful housekeeper Solange.  He's unaware his wife had encouraged Solange as a means to release her from her unhappy marriage.  "Who are you, anyway? Just what are you attuned too.  I've only wanted to live a normal life, and with you that's impossible."  Vitoria asks herself, "Who am I if I'm not writing?"  She is more smitten with two female friendships; Dana, a ballet dancer and Antionette, her former co-worker at the museum.  Vitoria displays passion for the arts and has a healthy sexual appetite.  It wains with her husband.   Her behaviors are often puzzling & bizarre.  Vitoria, a writer & bibliophile, attends a reading by 2 authors she admires only to be disillusioned.  After, she proceeds to insult the authors.  At a party attended with her husband she becomes inebriated & turns to a female companion to dance.  Perhaps, independence & freedom are what drives Vitoria.  INDELICACY provides food for thought and challenges the reader to ponder what drives our heroine.  It also calls into question how we perceive the world.  "Life changes and veers and becomes something new."  I found this uncanny novel enticing but the chances for most to embrace it are dicey.

THE LONG SONG Historic Novel of Slavery in Jamaica by UK The Long Road to Change

Andrea Levy (b UK 1956-2019) is a writer of astounding talent.  Her historic novel of slavery in Jamaica embarks around 1834.  The year the King of England decreed slavery illegal.  England outlawed slave trade in 1807 but did not abolish slavery.  Despite ordered emancipation in 1834, the brutal oppression of slavery persisted. Its savagery & inhumanity is sharply felt as is the repugnance of the British plantation owners & white overseers.  Indigenous Jamaicans were forced into slavery and captured natives from the West Coast of Africans were forced into slavery.  Levy was born in the UK to Jamaican parents.  Her eloquence is expressed through the voice of the novel's heroine, July.  July is born a slave on a sugar cane plantation & taken coldheartedly from her mother as a little girl by the mistress to be her servant.  The time sequence fugue is enveloped by July's writing her life story.  Her life and the lives on the plantation are put to paper at the coaxing of her son, an established printer.  July's is an artful raconteur.  Her life unfolds back in time & place.  We feel the pain & indignities of slavery as we build a connection to our storyteller.  July's epic tale begins with a fore- warning "Consider whether my tale is one in which you can find an interest.  If not, then be on your way." Robert Goodwin is the dastardly plantation owner who lords over the slaves.  Goodwin contrives to make July his mistress & mother of his child yet relegates her life insignificant.  Despite the proclamation banning slavery, many Jamaican slaves rightly feared slavery would persist & their lives to remain shackled in servitude.  For who would carry out the labor to keep the whites embedded in luxury & prosperity?  Still, many considering themselves free remain adamant in their resistance to yield to subserviency.  Goodwin's father wrotes his son, "I'm sure as the new master of the plantation called Amity, the injustice of that abominable state of slavery will become just a distance memory...Once burdened like beasts, they will be able to go happily about their tasks under your compassionate guidance." {Not a chance!} The resistance from the emancipated Jamaican slaves wrecks havoc to the sugar cane industry dependent on free labor.  A consensus by plantation owners as a solution was to harvest slaves from India; referred to as coolies. White people's religious convictions serve as a malevolent justification for hierarchal ownership over other races.  Goodwin proselytizes amongst the freed slaves, "Grant us this day the blessing to turn the negroes of Amity back from sin, to the path of righteousness, so that they will labour once more upon this plantation, as is your divine will." A caste system amongst people of color is observed favoring lighter skinned Negroes.  Levy's trenchant epic is profound.  It was shortlisted for the Man Booker in 2010.  July knows the control welded by the lash yet understands "...the power embedded in words that can nevertheless cower the largest man to gibbering tears."

Ali Wong Dear Girls- Comedy Gone Wrong with TMI Meant for her Girls Eyes Only - Only Not

Ali Wong is a stand-up comedian, sitcom writer, and all around stand-up mother married to the man she "trapped."  Wong's auto-bio ALI WONG DEAR GIRLS is 'intended' as a letter to her young daughters, to be read only after she's dead is well intended.  Unfortunately, she bends our ears with her entire life (including the most embarrassing, intimate & gross experiences) one would never really want their children to know.  At least, I thought so.  But no, Wong is overly long in telling us her childhood, rebel years, sexual awakenings, comedic training there's literally no explaining left to do or yearning to be learning more.  Ali's desire to have known her grandfather before he died was denied her.  Heaven forbid her girls should ever yearn to truly know her or receive her wit & wisdom will not happen because she will have left it all in writing for them, and everyone else who reads her book or sees her stand-up routines.  Being candid can make for an enticing tale when there's a fascinating tale to be told.  Ali's open book, 'epistolatory' love memoir to her girls and her steadfast Harvard educated, Asian American husband is somewhat amusing.  Her sexual escapades, projectile diarrhea  or obsession for food (any kind) doesn't crush it.  Wong seems to be the cool friend we'd all like to have.  However, her revelatory exploits erupt with laughter or wonderment.  There are a few good bits.  But her soul searching advice to her girls falls flat, "My last piece advice would be to focus not on the result, but instead, the process and the journey."  She also has advice for aspiring comics too that hardly feels new, "Center on having a tolerance for delayed gratification, a passion for the craft, and a willingness to fail."  Wong's passion for her family, her craft and for life are vibrant throughout but I doubt there's an audience who'll  appreciate DEAR GIRLS, except for her girls.