The Ghosts of Other Immigrants

by Maija Mäkinen

The characters in these stories of migration are marked by heritage and the pasts that follow them wherever they go. A young woman in 1970s Washington, D.C., is changed forever after her love interest is kidnapped; a woman's personal crisis melds with the climate crisis on the darkened shores of Southwest Finland; a Karelian refugee attempts to control her legacy as she nears death; a threesome of young queer immigrants in New York discover their mutual friendship costs more than it gives. Each of these characters tries to find a way to accept-or erase-the ghosts and hollow spaces that follow their displacements.

Genres: Short Stories

170 pages, Paperback

Published June 6, 2023

Reviews

[Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maija Makinen’s The Ghost of Other Immigrants is a gorgeous, sorrowful book of stories. Her prose is high and shining and dark and muddy. Every once in a while, I reread The Great Gatsby for the wonder of its crystalline poetry. I ask, “Is he really just writing about curtains in the breeze?” I had the same feeling with this book. I ask, “Is Makinen really just writing about shadows on the lawn?” I wish to call a conspirator in literature and read a paragraph aloud. The truth is, they aren’t really just curtains in the wind nor shadows on the lawn; they’re a lens on the world, a haunting, a mourning. And then her structures are so seamless they feel absent. I must make another comparison, to Flannery O’Conner. Makinen’s darkness is less invested in human cruelty and more in failing, but I must compare them to another master because they are that good, leaving us with continual surprise and the feeling: this is exactly how it must be told. I kept waiting for one story to be weaker, as is completely normal in even the most admired writers, something feeling a little messy or off kilter, or too easy; it never happened. And finally, something must be said about her subject matters: migration, and again, perhaps as a cousin to O’Conner, that desire drives us in ways both conscious and unconscious. Sexual awakenings and repressions and the difference between American and European notions of sexuality are driving forces of the book. Makinen is a person whom immigration sociologists call a “1.5” a person who moves nation at an age young and old enough to be fluent in both cultures, but who perhaps will now feel nationless. There she is between Finland and this country we call America. The Ghost of Other Immigrants tells this profound tale, a very American tale, and I have the grateful and sad-as-I-like-it feeling that yes, this is how it must be told.

[Susan Ehtesham-Zadeh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most of us living in the United States today could use a fresh perspective on our society, and that is one of the many gifts The Ghosts of Other Immigrants bestows. Each of the stories in this powerful collection opens a new window on life in America. Seen through the wide eyes of the immigrant protagonists, the United States becomes a curious and paradoxical place: liberating and oppressive, grand and petty, wondrous and cruel. Using descriptions so precise they explode our senses, Makinen renders both the physical and emotional landscapes her characters navigate, and we find ourselves navigating those landscapes with them. The experience is sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes unsettling, and sometimes amusing—but it is always instructive. With a deft hand, Makinen steers us through an astonishing range of topics: young love, old age, sexual exploration, family secrets, environmental crisis, and more. Whether young or old, queer or straight, settled or searching, the immigrants in these stories all have something to teach us. A quiet collection that outshines many of the books currently on the market, The Ghosts of Other Immigrants is proof positive that the greatest writing isn’t always that which garners the most attention.

[Debbie Westphal]

Did not enjoy this book & didn’t finish it.

[Nithasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some sentences are poetically descriptive, but after about 2-3 stories it seems repetitive and forced.