A Russian Immigrant: Three Novellas

by Maxim D. Shrayer

“A quietly powerful addition to the canon of émigré literature” — The Moscow Times No longer at home in Russia, but not quite assimilated into the American mainstream, the daily lives of Russian immigrants are fueled by a combustible mix of success and alienation. Simon Reznikov, the Boston-based immigrant protagonist of Maxim D. Shrayer’s A Russian Immigrant , is restless. Unresolved feelings about his Jewish (and American) present and his Russian (and Soviet) past prevent Reznikov from easily putting down roots in his new country. A visit to a decaying summer resort in the Catskills, now populated by Jewish ghosts of Soviet history, which include a famous émigré writer, reveals to Reznikov that he, too, is a prisoner of his past. An expedition to Prague in search of clues for an elusive Jewish writer’s biography exposes Reznikov’s own inability to move on. A chance reunion with a former Russian lover, now also an immigrant living in an affluent part of Connecticut, unearths memories of Reznikov’s last Soviet summer while reanimating many contradictors of a mixed, Jewish-Russian marriage. Told both linearly and non-linearly, with elements of suspense, mystery and crime, these three interconnected novellas gradually reveal many layers of the characters’ Russian, Jewish, and Soviet identities. Vectors of love and desire, nostalgia and amnesia, violence and forgiveness, politics and aesthetics guide Shrayer’s immigrant characters while also disorienting them in their new American lives. Set in Providence, New Haven and Boston, but also in places of the main character’s pilgrimages such as Estonia and Bohemia, Shrayer’s book weaves together a literary manifesto of Russian Jews in America.

140 pages, Paperback

Published September 17, 2019

About the author

Maxim D. Shrayer was born in Moscow, in 1967, to a Jewish-Russian family. With his parents, the writer and medical scientist David Shrayer-Petrov and the philologist and translator Emilia Shrayer (Polyak), he spent almost nine years as a refusenik. He and his parents left the USSR and immigrated to the United States in 1987, after spending a summer in Austria and Italy.

Reviews

[Erika Dreifus]

These novellas—"Bohemian Spring," "Brotherly Love," and "Borscht Belt"—introduce us to Simon Reznikov, who shares with Shrayer some basic biography: Moscow-born son of refusenik parents; ultimately permitted to leave the then-Soviet Union in the 1980s; a talented American graduate student in the 1990s. Is it a spoiler alert to say that the conclusion of "Brotherly Love" broke my heart? Or that "Bohemian Spring" is likely to resonate especially (but by no means only) with anyone who has ever conducted dissertation research in a library/archive—and those of us who remember the emergence of Prague in the immediate aftermath of the Velvet Revolution.

[Olga Zilberbourg]

Simon Reznikov grew up in Moscow and in 1993 emigrated, with his parents, to the United States. He was twenty-six, a doctoral student in Comparative Literature, and his was able to continue his studies in New Haven. Yet, finishing a degree is one thing, and building a successful life as a new arrival, is an entirely different thing -- that requires, among other pre-requisites, to reexamine one's ideas of success.

Three novellas tell us of distinct episodes in Simon's life -- not quite sufficient for us to learn of his entire life story, but giving us a good understanding of his character and changing ambitions to captivate and to want to learn what all has happened and has been left out of this particular book. A resonant and charming book.

[Rachel]

2 1/2 stars - I like novellas and I like linked short stories but I'm not sure I understand the concept of linked novellas. Shrayer's three novellas in A Russian Immigrant all feature Simon Reznikov at different points in his young adult life and mostly focus on his friendships, romantic relationships, and experiences as a Russian immigrant to the United States. His characters are very similar to David Bezmozgis's characters in Natasha and Other Stories. The second novella, "Brotherly Love," was the most memorable and impactful but the book as a whole didn't quite work for me.

[Witoldzio]

The novellas are pleasant to read, a voice of a group within a larger immigrant community from the former Soviet Union. While I found the writing proficient and in many ways satisfying, I somewhat missed a stronger individual voice. Perhaps is more discernible in the author's larger works.