A Terrible Country - A Novel

Zusatztext 87940832 Informationen zum Autor Keith Gessen is the author of All the Sad Young Literary Men and a founding editor of n+1 . He is the editor of three nonfiction books and the translator or co-translator! from Russian! of a collection of short stories! a book of poems! and a work of oral history! Nobel Prize-winner Svetlana Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl . A contributor to The New Yorker and The London Review of Books ! Gessen teaches journalism at Columbia and lives in New York with his wife and sons. Klappentext A New York Times Editors' Choice Named a Best Book of 2018 by Bookforum! Nylon! Esquire! and Vulture "This artful and autumnal novel! published in high summer! is a gift to those who wish to receive it." -Dwight Garner! The New York Times "Hilarious! heartbreaking . . . A Terrible Country may be one of the best books you'll read this year." -Ann Levin! Associated Press "The funniest work of fiction I've read this year." -Christian Lorentzen! Vulture.com A literary triumph about Russia! family! love! and loyalty-the first novel in ten years from a founding editor of n+1 and author of All the Sad Young Literary Men When Andrei Kaplan's older brother Dima insists that Andrei return to Moscow to care for their ailing grandmother! Andrei must take stock of his life in New York. His girlfriend has stopped returning his text messages. His dissertation adviser is dubious about his job prospects. It's the summer of 2008! and his bank account is running dangerously low. Perhaps a few months in Moscow are just what he needs. So Andrei sublets his room in Brooklyn! packs up his hockey stuff! and moves into the apartment that Stalin himself had given his grandmother! a woman who has outlived her husband and most of her friends. She survived the dark days of communism and witnessed Russia's violent capitalist transformation! during which she lost her beloved dacha. She welcomes Andrei into her home! even if she can't always remember who he is. Andrei learns to navigate Putin's Moscow! still the city of his birth! but with more expensive coffee. He looks after his elderly-but surprisingly sharp!-grandmother! finds a place to play hockey! a café to send emails! and eventually some friends! including a beautiful young activist named Yulia. Over the course of the year! his grandmother's health declines and his feelings of dislocation from both Russia and America deepen. Andrei knows he must reckon with his future and make choices that will determine his life and fate. When he becomes entangled with a group of leftists! Andrei's politics and his allegiances are tested! and he is forced to come to terms with the Russian society he was born into and the American one he has enjoyed since he was a kid. A wise! sensitive novel about Russia! exile! family! love! history and fate! A Terrible County asks what you owe the place you were born! and what it owes you. Writing with grace and humor! Keith Gessen gives us a brilliant and mature novel that is sure to mark him as one of the most talented novelists of his generation. 1. i move to moscow In the late summer of 2008, I moved to Moscow to take care of my grandmother. She was about to turn ninety and I hadn't seen her for nearly a decade. My brother, Dima, and I were her only family; her lone daughter, our mother, had died years earlier. Baba Seva lived alone now in her old Moscow apartment. When I called to tell her I was coming, she sounded very happy to hear it, and also a little confused. My parents and my brother and I left the Soviet Union in 1981. I was six and Dima was sixteen, and that made all the difference. I became an American, whereas Dima remained essentially Russian. As soon as the Soviet Union collapsed, he returned to Moscow to make his fo...

Product details

• Authors: Keith Gessen
• Publisher: Viking USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 10.07.2018
• EAN: 9780735221314
• ISBN: 978-0-7352-2131-4
• No. of pages: 352
• Dimensions: 158 mm x 236 mm x 30 mm