Whether set in Maxim D. Shrayer’s native Russia or in North America and
Western Europe, the eight stories in this collection explore
emotionally intricate relationships that cross traditional boundaries
of ethnicity, religion, and culture. Tracing the lives, obsessions, and
aspirations of Jewish-Russian immigrants, these poignant, humorous, and
tender stories create an expansive portrait of individuals struggling
to come to terms with ghosts of their European pasts while
simultaneously seeking to build new lives in their American present.
Maxim D. Shrayer is professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies at Boston College. Among his books are The World of Nabokov’s Stories and Russian Poet/Soviet Jew and the literary memoir Waiting for America: A Story of Emigration. A bilingual author and translator, Shrayer won the National Jewish Book Award for the two-volume Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature.
