Russian Lessons

by Catherine Texier

This is a beautifully wrought and deeply compelling story exploring the very real pain of a recently divorced writer trying to navigate her life in Manhattan as a single parent. Her risky affair with a wild Russian undocumented immigrant is both hilarious and poignant.

Genres: Novels

216 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Emer Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Texier's writing is tender, insightful and never cliched. This is a beautifully wrought and deeply compelling story exploring the very real pain of a recently divorced writer trying to navigate her life in Manhattan as a single parent. Her risky affair with a wild Russian undocumented immigrant is both hilarious and poignant. Russian Letters is that rare gem, a book that is both erotic and intelligent.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Catherine Texier’s Russian Lessons is as crisp, bold, and smart as its narrator, a 52-year-old divorcee experimenting with a bit of rough—who proves to be rougher than expected. Thirty-year-old émigré Yuri is the Russian of the title: an alternatingly bitter and sentimental salesman who doesn’t see the irony of emulating Willy Loman.
The book hinges on their affair, which one doesn’t need much prescience to know is doomed from the outset. The real mystery of the book is why the competent and worldly narrator and an uncouth brute would connect across a 22-year age gap. The explanation seems to be post-divorce friskiness on the part of the narrator, and mother issues for Yuri. But Texier doesn’t waste too much ink on motivation, seemingly agreeing with Woody Allen’s truthful but creepy dictum: “the heart wants what it wants.”
The affair takes the narrator—and the reader—to some uncomfortable spots on the power-sex nexus, but this is not a dirty book. Texier’s spare yet vivid writing style propels the reader along, as do the narrator’s clear-eyed observations. One of my favorites is a description of a crystalline winter’s day: “The sky is brilliant blue. Life doesn’t have a crease.”

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is both silken and electric. Sensual, dangerous, even frightening. The tension between the pull of the carnal scenes with the coziness of the family scenes, the way the relationship frays into unstable rage, it rivets the reader. I was enthralled.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Catherine Texier's latest novel takes you on a seductive journey into an affair between the narrator and an illegal Russian immigrant, Yuri P., whom she meets at a party. Yuri is strong like a shot of vodka, both physically and emotionally, which the narrator finds alluring. But his strength has a brutal side that complicates things the deeper she gets into the affair. Both characters are fascinatingly complex--flawed and gifted in various ways, and their attraction and affection for each other is equally complex: mysterious, irrational, unwise, and yet as inexorable as the force of gravity itself. Texier is a masterful writer--she chooses her words just right and never gives us too many or too few. If you want a novel to ravish you, this is the one.

[Liz Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This smart and riveting book follows the tumultuous affair between a recently divorced French writer and a Russian immigrant. Their physically electric connection is immediate but she finds herself alternating between desire and disgust. As his demands for her body, her time, and her assistance with his immigration status grow increasingly feverish, the affair takes a turn for the dangerous.

[Denise]

How easy to get caught up in the physical abandon, especially for a divorcee who probably already feels rejected. But you need to be able to pull back before it is too late, before it ruins the rest of your life. Glad she found out in time.

[Laune · Rating 4 out of 5]

Both the narrator and Yuri are complex characters. One can recognize from the start the affair is doomed. Their attraction/affection is unwise and mysterious leading to frightening tension and rage.