November 21, 2016
Three generations of a Russian-American Jewish family are caught in the turmoil of the Soviet Union and its aftermath in Krasikov’s capacious, exhausting novel. In 1933, the headstrong young Brooklynite Florence Fein meets Soviet engineer Sergey Sokolov through her work at Amtorg, the unofficial Soviet trade mission in the U.S. After a summer affair, she follows Sergey back to the Old World, dreaming of a more equitable society; the reality she finds in the city of Magnitogorsk looks more like “appalling sanitation... endless hunger... bullying superiors.” Journeying on to Moscow, she begins to make a new life with a new love—a fellow expatriate lured by the Soviet promise of the future—but that life is soon imperiled by Stalin’s purges, as arrests, interrogations, and executions terrorize the population. By shifting frequently among narrators and time periods, Krasikov suggests that the perils of Russian life are perennial; in 2008, Florence’s adult son, Julian, now living in the U.S. and working for an oil company, returns to Moscow and finds himself faced not only with pervasive corruption, but with the possibility that his own son, Lenny, may be endangered by the unsavory business deal he’s been tasked to execute. Krasikov aims for a cubist take on the Soviet century, touching on orphanages, labor camps, universities, and the theater. The plot lags and the prose is awkward, but readers may discover some interesting details of the time and place through the extensive research Krasikov implements into the story.
