Immigrant City

by David Bezmozgis

FINALIST FOR THE 2019 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE

Award-winning author David Bezmozgis’s first story collection in more than a decade, hailed by the Toronto Star as “intelligent, funny, unfailingly sympathetic”

In the title story, a father and his young daughter stumble into a bizarre version of his immigrant childhood. A mysterious tech conference brings a writer to Montreal, where he discovers new designs on the past in “How It Used to Be.” A grandfather’s Yiddish letters expose a love affair and a wartime secret in “Little Rooster.” In “Childhood,” Mark’s concern about his son’s phobias evokes a shameful incident from his own adolescence. In “Roman’s Song,” Roman’s desire to help a new immigrant brings him into contact with a sordid underworld. At his father’s request, Victor returns to Riga, the city of his birth, where his loyalties are tested by the man he might have been in “A New Gravestone for an Old Grave.” And, in the noir-inspired “The Russian Riviera,” Kostya leaves Russia to pursue a boxing career only to find himself working as a doorman in a garish nightclub in the Toronto suburbs.

In these deeply felt, slyly humorous stories, Bezmozgis pleads no special causes but presents immigrant characters with all their contradictions and complexities, their earnest and divided hearts.

 

 

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Canada, Contemporary, Anthologies, Cultural, Canadian Literature

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2019

About the author

Born in Riga, Latvia, Bezmozgis moved to Canada when he was six. He attended McGill University and then received his MFA from USC's School of Cinema-Television. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, and Zoetrope. In 2010 he was chosen by The New Yorker as one of the best 20 writers under 40.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very quick review. I loved the authors novel, “The Betrayers”...
I have much respect for David Bezmozgis as a writer. He’s extremely gifted.

But although these short stories were written well ... (a couple were haunting....and powerfully felt), .....as most were dark ... I felt emotionally disconnected much of the time.

I could dig up a few outstanding excerpts I’ve highlighted if anyone is dying to see...
otherwise ... I’m just going to move on.

If you are Jewish and a die-hard committed reader of Jewish authors ( I admit I fall into that group - or maybe are a supporter of Toronto authors).... then you may want to pick this book up because David gives us family, memories, history, and explores immigration with insight.

It’s good - these stories are thought provoking....
But at times as one reviewer said - which I agree- some of his characters were wooden.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can I just say that I got a perverse joy every time David Bezmozgis talked of his home in Latvia thinking it as Latveria the home of Doctor Doom. Vaguely European vassals under the sway of an iron plated monarch with a penchant for villainous monologuing. Right - not helpful. God, I suck at reviewing short stories.

Listen the first, and titular, story just hooked me. It's just a tight, beautifully constructed, evocative piece about a man and his daughter buying a car door from a Somali in Toronto. And then it's followed by a couple of shaggy pieces that just don't quite gel for me and I'm off balance. But maybe I'm just not paying close enough attention. Bezmozgis has a way of laying out elements of a story that snap into sharp focus at the end. Victor returning to his homeland to settle a gravestone at the expense of his vacation resolves into dealing with his counterpart Ilya and how far removed he's become from the life that might have been his in Riga. The final story, The Russian Riviera ambles at a fine pace in a clear voice that I'd have been happy to get a full story from.

So like every short story review ever. Some hits, some misses but overall a solid piece of writing.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought of how one might explain to a four-year-old the raft of complicated, legitimate and paranoid reasons that militated against her wearing her gift in public, but the mere prospect of opening my mouth felt hideous and exhausting. I was also aware that I was a man with a car door who feared that Nora's hijab would make us weirdly conspicuous [on the subway]. In the end it didn't matter. In an immigrant city, a city of innumerable struggles and ambitions, a white man with a car door and a daughter wearing a blue hijab attract less attention than you might expect.

Immigrant City is a collection of seven short stories, and for the most part, author David Bezmozgis explores just a few themes: the immigrant experience, and especially, the Jewish immigrant experience; and especially, the experience of Jewish immigrants who came to Canada as children from the former Soviet Union. The struggles these characters have are very particular to their circumstances, and details repeat themselves throughout the stories so that I had to keep wondering if I was essentially reading about the same character; if I was reading about the author himself. The first few stories were really good (with endings that twisted off surprisingly), and then the next few were just okay, and then the last was something completely different. An uneven collection, perhaps, but there were many good bits here. The stories:

People were always offering writers their stories, I thought. But those were rarely the stories writers wanted. Those stories were like children who always raised their hands in class. Good stories didn't raise their hands. – Immigrant City

A Jewish writer has an encounter with the former Somali minister of justice – now a blind and sick old man living anonymously in a rundown Toronto apartment complex – who would like for the writer to do something with his memoirs. In just a few short scenes, much is revealed about both the immigrant experience and the multicultural fabric of Toronto.

It happened, I thought. Years after you left here and ceased to know her, the lofty thing you dreamed of came true. You made it come true. What a comfort it would have been to know that. And what a surprise to learn that in twenty years you'd be standing here looking back with a longing equal to the longing with which you'd once looked ahead. – How It Used to Be

A semi-successful writer, during a time of routine marital disharmony, returns to a city of his youth and is waylaid by visions of the past, challenging a moral stance he had intended to take. So spare and yet intriguing .

One of life's cruelest lessons is that a person can't unknow something. And there exists enough unavoidable pain in the world that one would be a fool or a masochist to actively court more. – Little Rooster

Family secrets are revealed when a middle-aged man takes possession of his late grandfather's effects. The details provide a fascinating glimpse into the Soviet Jewish experience during and after WWII. Most fleetingly intriguing detail: Just what would you make of the neighbours your family had lived alongside for generations who chose to retreat with the defeated German army rather than stay and rebuild the village by your side?

What constituted ordinary childhood? What did they have to go on? Report cards were composed in a language that bore only a faint resemblance to English. Parent-teacher conferences had the polite, anxious feel of second dates. Then there was the hysterical Internet. Contrast with his older sister. Comparison against Mark's imperfect memories of his own childhood. Did he have even a single distinct memory of himself at eight? Everything before – what, twelve? – felt like a brown haze punctuated by bright spectres of embarrassment or shame. – Childhood

In trying to determine if his son's development is proceeding appropriately, a man is confronted with memories of his own childhood. Nice, subtle shift of focus that makes something universal out of the particularities of a life.

It was easy to pity Svirsky, Roman thought. But for all his troubles, Svirsky was actually a lucky man. He possessed something Roman had lost and could never recover. Confused, tired, defeated, Svirsky would still go home to the expectant clamour of his young children. No money, no success, nothing the man attained would ever rival such joy. – Roman's Song

Another meditation on the need to appreciate the joys that can be masked by the struggles when you're just starting out – whether as a new father or recent immigrant.

A short distance up the beach, two middle-aged women in bathing suits were balancing against each other and advancing gingerly out into the Baltic. They had already progressed about fifty yards but the water was not yet to their waists. The sight triggered Victor's first memory of his Soviet childhood: stepping out into a dark-blue sea, conscious of danger but feeling as though he could go a great distance before he had anything to fear. – A New Gravestone for an Old Grave

When an LA-based lawyer is sent back to Latvia, the country of his birth, to attend to family matters, he is confronted by a man who seems to be living the life he might have had himself.

Kostya watched the larger gangster unbutton his jacket and slide his hand inside. Cursing Skinny Zyama, Kostya took a step in the gangster's direction. If the man had a gun, there wasn't much he could do about it, but he knew that if the gangster motioned toward his pocket, he was required to take a step forward. There was an understanding between everyone in the room that this was how it was supposed to be. The script had been written long ago and performed by other men in other rooms and in the movies. – The Russian Riviera

Funny, I never think of Russian mobsters and billionaires settling down in Toronto, but this story sets a satisfyingly noir narrative in that world.

In the end, I liked the shorter stories better than the longer ones, but together, they portray an interesting piece of the Toronto immigrant scene and I wouldn't be disappointed if it won the Giller Prize (for which it is short-listed).

[Jennifer (Insert Lit Pun)]

Nothing about the title, cover, or description intrigued me, but I'm so glad I picked this up - these stories are BRILLIANT. (Adding a tally in the "marketing ≠ reading experience" column)

[Jack M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impeccably timed, I purchased this while walking down Bloor Street in a minus ten degree Toronto, tip toeing over several crackheads, at a book store nestled in between Pam's Carribean kitchen and a cannabis shop, with an African importer of dubious riffraff above. Don’t delude yourself, the privilege of living on this street will set you back at least a cool couple of million. I read this short collection of stories shortly after, in the comfort of suburbia, where the immigrant-ness is concealed in cookie cutter homes, knowing full well the experience would be enhanced by such an outing and Bezmozgis has got it spot on. As a child of parents who arrived to this new land with only a suitcase, who struggled to find an identity, I think I’m qualified to make this observation, and Bezmozgis captures the fucked-upness of the place, the immigrant experience perfectly.

And by now, I’m a man of nowhere, and yet, it could have been the Willie Nelson, it could have been the wine, these last lines coming from the first story I found so powerful that they managed to stir a feeling of home, perhaps not geographically, but experientially in my bones.

"Nora, it's our stop," I said. "Do you want to go home or keep going?"
"Go home and keep going," she said.

[Karen]

Short stories that are darkly funny, depressive, hilarious, biting, smart, and urbane. Too bad they couldn’t give two Gillers this year.

[Enid Wray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Proviso: I loved his earlier collection, Natasha and Other Stories… so am predisposed to want to like this… And I am not disappointed in the least.

Indeed, in the opening story, the third paragraph, we get this: "… I called my wife, who was born in America and raised in mindless California abundance. For her family, scratching cars and misplacing wallets was like a hobby. I, on the other hand, had been an immigrant child, with all the heartache and superiority that conferred" (p3). Or, on page 6, in the same story, we learn that "(o)n either side of the street rose apartment buildings, thrumming with life and larceny." Listen to that sentence.

How much he says in so few words… beautifully crafted, every word chosen so carefully… it invites the reader to de-construct every line into its component parts... like one is wont to do with an Alice Munro story. Sets the tone for what is to come… and gives a preview into the overarching narrative arc connecting all of the stories in this collection.

The darkly tragic humour is something else connecting the stories together. When his wife, who needs the family car, asks how he is planning bringing home a new car door he’s bought (on Kijiji or such) from a guy in Rexdale, he replies… "Like an immigrant" (p5). Or the fact of Mohamed’s uncle, the Minister of Justice in Somalia prior to the Civil War, dying in obscurity after offering his counsel to Americans and Canadians alike, for which "(t)hey neglected and forgot him like he was trash" (p12).

And that’s just the first, title, story. The broader themes... religion, stereotypes and prejudices, class, family, memory, loss and regret, secrets, displacement, loss and longing… are all explored with a finely tuned eye and sensitivity to the intergenerational differences that exist within the immigrant family and the broader immigrant community.

[Tatiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very strange book. I am an immigrant grant but I couldn't relate to any of the stories. I got them but they didn't get me.

[Paula Dembeck · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Bezmozgis, a Latvian born writer who lives in Toronto Canada, has crafted seven short stories based on the contemporary immigrant experience. Bezmozgis himself an immigrant, has written other books about the immigrant experience but his latest was written after he had become a husband and father and after his grandparents and most of his parent’s generation had died. He felt differently about the world. His life and his social situation were now very different from the time his family first came to Canada and although he has been here for about forty years, he is still trying to understand his roots.

In these stories he explores what it is like to be an outsider always trying to fit into a world that is different and knowing that your ability to adapt will ultimately determine whether you will be accepted and thrive in your new environment. He gives readers a sense of the continual pressure to be observant to cues which tell you how to look and act. You must always be sensitive to what makes you stand out in a crowd. The pressure of concentrating on becoming one with a culture different from your own, places you under considerable stress and not everyone is successful at holding on. You must learn not only to leave old ways behind but also how to deal with fear; not everyone in a new place is welcoming.

The title story “Immigrant City” is one of the best in the collection. The narrator tells us his Toyota has been in a car crash and he needs a quick cheap fix. He locates Mohamed Abdi on the internet who has a door for sale and travels with his young daughter Nora to the man’s Somali neighborhood in Rexdale. The neighborhood reminds him so much of his childhood in Soviet Latvia it brings tears to his eyes. When he meets Mohamed, the man asks him to follow him upstairs where the car door is stored. The narrator thinks twice before leaving his daughter with Mohamed’s wife and child to check out the car door and negotiate the sale. His mind has quickly descended to dark places as he remembers the family story of how his father was almost taken by gypsies when he was a small boy. He also wonders if he would feel differently leaving Nora behind if Mohamed wasn’t Muslim and black. But he recenters his thinking and seeing Nora happily playing with Mohamed’s daughter, leaves with Mohamed to check out the door. When he returns he finds Nora wearing a blue hijab, a gift Mohamed’s wife gave her which she refuses to take off for the trip home. Her father thinks of all the paranoid and legitimate reasons Nora should not wear the hijab in public and all the things that could possibly happen on the way home, but gives way and lets her wear it. As they go on the bus and subway, he soon learns that traveling with a new car door and holding the hand of a daughter in a hijab does not attract as much attention as he thought it would. They are just two more unremarkable people in a city of immigrants. As they approach home, a conversation between father and daughter provides the keynote theme for the rest of the collection. When her father asks Nora if she wants to go home, Nora replies that she does, but she also wants to keep going. It is a short but meaningful statement of an immigrant’s longing for the comfort of their homeland while at the same time pulled by their desire for their new lives.

The phrase, “how it used to be”, is often used by immigrants to describe the past. It becomes the title of another story in which the narrator uses the same words to refer to his marriage with children. The writer expresses a litany of complaints to his partner and an event occurs which thrusts him back into the past. The story ends with his partner saving a bird and at the narrator’s urging, shelters it in her sweatshirt and takes it to the vet, unwilling to let it die. It is a quiet but powerful symbol of the immigration experience that like a relationship, may not always be happy but is about sustaining a life together.

In “Little Rooster” a grandson finds a cache of letters written by his grandfather to his brother. The letters are written in Yiddish and curious to know their contents, he has them translated. When he does, he realizes this confidential communication reveals an affair and an illegitimate child his grandfather had that he knew nothing about. Suddenly he realizes his grandfather had a secret life and he wonders if he had underestimated and under-imagined this man he had placed on a pedestal but never really knew. His is curious about how extensive this secret life with this woman was and he seeks her out. He meets both her and her daughter but never receives any clear story of the events referred to in the letters, so he abandons the quest and returns to his everyday life. He has come to understand that something happened a long time ago between two people who are no longer alive and in his rush to understand it, he was assigning it too much importance. His grandfather kept a secret and now his grandson was keeping a secret of that secret, one he understood only partially and imperfectly, but one he would still keep.

In “A New Gravestone for an Old Grave”, Victor Shulman a successful lawyer in Los Angeles is forced by his father’s bidding to divert his plan for a holiday with friends to return to Riga where he was born and oversee the installation of a new stone for his grandfather’s grave. His father’s friend Sander Rabinsky who was entrusted with the task has died and there is no one there to make sure the job is done properly. The stone cutter’s work is lagging behind and unless someone personally intervenes the work may never be completed. Victor finds it an uncomfortable trip. He is angry he will miss the long planned trip with his friends, finds no nostalgic pull or connection to the country which is his homeland and does not feel a part of a collective family memory. He meets Sander’s son Ilya Rabinsky also a lawyer and discovers an uncomfortable picture of the man he could have been if his father had never left Riga. Although he is indebted to Ilya who has stayed behind and has been looking after his grandfather’s grave, he finds that without a feeling of connection to this land and to Ilya, there are limits to his capacity to feel for him. Ilya, resentful of the opportunities Victor has had, shares his plan to scam the immigration system to get his family to America. Victor is shocked by Ilya’s composure as he calmly shares with him the role he wants Victor to play in his illegal plan to get his family out of Latvia. As the days go by, Victor is trapped in Latvia pursuing a stone cutter, thinking obsessively about gravestones and repeating the obsessive behavior for which he had always criticized his father. The trip becomes increasingly filled with misadventure, diversions and frustration, revealing to Victor what his life could have been like if his family had stayed in Latvia.

In "Roman's Son" readers meet Roman Berman, an established massage therapist who has achieved his dream. He has his own practice, is in charge of his own business and can provide a good living for his family. But he is being pressured by thugs to enter the black market and turn his place of business into an after-hours brothel. Despite their threats Roman rejects their proposal. At home he is sympathetic to the needs of a man named Svirsky, a poor soul who reminds him of his struggling years as a new immigrant in Toronto. He recalls days long ago when despite being poor, he still had a world of possibility at his feet. Roman has learned that the cost of success in this new world also brings with it loss and a longing for the past.

“The Russian Riviera” immerses readers in the world of small time mobsters who easily deceive would-be prize fighters trying to survive in an immigrant city. Kosyta who once had a promising career as a young boxer in Western Siberia was able to come to Canada by declaring himself a refugee. He is now stuck in a life working as a doorman and bouncer at “The Russian Riviera” a restaurant and cabaret in New Jersey. The club, owned by Skinny Zyama, hosts the overdressed and wealthy who came to enjoy dinner and a floorshow. Like many illegal immigrants, Kostya lives on the margins of society among a community of Russians. Like his boss and his girlfriend’s family, they have settled in a place where the boundaries between what is legal and what is illegal are always fuzzy. Apart from knowing how to box, Kostya is a man with few skills. He has no education and therefore few opportunities. Although his girlfriend Ivetta is pressuring him to run away to another city and get married, he knows going along with her plan is foolhardy. She could easily tire of him and leave him and he would find himself back at point zero having lost everything he has accomplished. So he decides to risk the possibility of gangsters taking over the club, rather than the uncertainty of unemployment. The story paints a sensitive picture of what leads some to leave their homeland. Kostya, like many other immigrants remains in a kind of limbo, successful in neither the old world nor the new. As the story closes, a Russian gangster and Kostya are outside discussing their situation, wondering how they ever got to be where they are now and how they will ever get out. Neither knows the answer to the question. And that ends with the refrain of Nora’s words from the first story: we just go home and keep going.

In these stories, the past frequently pushes its way into the present as immigrants try to live new lives, always reminded of an imagined but happier life back in their homeland. Bezmozgis explores themes of displacement, memory and nostalgia and shows how immigrants are survivors, people who try to live in a different world while overcoming feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy.

It is often the middle generation of sons and grandsons who have grown up to be parents themselves who still live in a state of unease. Their children find it easier to adapt. Nora in the title story who was at one point in tears thinking she had been abandoned by her father while he went upstairs to conduct the business with the car door, is soon sitting happily on the streetcar wearing her blue hijab and asking her father when she can invite her new friend Samiya over for a playdate. She appears to adapt quickly and easily to cultural differences.

These stories helps readers understand the immigrant experience and understand how much we have in common with the many people we see every day that may not look like us, act like us or worship as we do, but nevertheless share our common concerns. It helps us realize how sometimes stereotypes, politics and biased perceptions get in the way of us really understanding and appreciating that.

Bezmozgis uses simple prose and quiet stories to describe everyday life. And actually, it is not until finishing a story that one realizes the complex emotions and complicated issues that he has addressed in his narrative. It is a brilliant strategy that pulls the reader in and hangs on to his attention before he knows what has happened.

This book was a finalist for the 2019 Giller prize.
Bezmozgis has been in such esteemed company before for two previous books, “Natasha” and “The Betrayer”. He is a Canadian writer to keep an eye on.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's the darkest book David Bezmozgis has yet written; a much more melancholy, cynical...even depressing...series of stories, definitely looking at the dark side of a specific set of immigrant experiences. It's not an easy read, but it's very compelling...if bleak. As the son of Eastern European immigrants, there are many items across the stories in this collection that speak to much of what I myself have seen and experienced.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sadly, DNF. I read all but the last story, but having forced myself that far I simply couldn't make myself go any further. It's a shame, because I'm a fan of short stories, but these just didn't hit the spot - for me. In none of them did I find a character I cared about, or a plot I cared about. I'm sure they were well-written, but they felt stolid, wooden, plodding. Sorry, Mr Bezmozgis.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Bezmozgis' short stories depicting the lives of immigrants.

[✿✿✿May · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book came through my library hold, so I gave it a try and it was meh for me! As a first-generation immigrant, I did not connect with any of his characters.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[MargaretDH · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always find it so tricky to rate short story collections. What if you really loved some stories, but strongly dislike others? Just an average? The way the whole book left you feeling? In any case, I really liked this whole thing, so it was an easy five stars.

Bezmozgis explores what it's like to be an immigrant in Canada. He deals with what it's like to be a newcomer in a strange land, what it's like to have tangled familial and emotional threads stretching back into other countries, and what it's like to find yourself using the same words but speaking a different language to those around you.

In Canada, many of us are immigrants or come from immigrant families. Like many of Bezmozgi's characters, one of my parents was born in a different country. My mother came to Canada as a child, but only from the United States, and as far as I'm concerned, that hardly counts. Her forbears and my father's forbears have been in North America for a long time, at least 4 generations on either side, and many longer. Bezmozgis is talking about second generation children, where the parents speak different languages, and often come from the Baltics. Many of his characters are Jewish, and the sense of the diaspora is laid over his stories. At the same time, many of these stories feel as though they could only take place in Canada.

Bezmozgis takes into the intimate lives of men negotiating new countries and world, and mediating for the generations that come before. Often, sometimes in small ways, his characters are forced to confront what's really important, and forced to see how our culture and individual sensibilities define how we structure our priorities.

I picked this up because of the Giller shortlist. I read The Betrayers a few years back when it was nominated and didn't much enjoy it, and would not have read another of his books. I'm so glad this was nominated, because this series of intimate and personal stories really spoke to me.

[Ian M. Pyatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping for more after enjoying "Natasha", his first collection of short stories.

The vast majority of the stories were good to very good, well written, very descriptive with great characters and plot lines, but the endings left me saying "Huh? That's it and what is the moral and/or meaning of the story.

Perhaps I'll need to re-read these one at a time later on to get what the author was trying to say?

[Heather(Gibby) · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I find about short stories is that just when I am getting connected to the lives of these characters the story is over. This is a decent collection, but there was just not enough time to fall in love with it.

[Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the story of the Russian boxer, but the rest didn't appeal to me.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful compilation of beautifully written a short story that really convey be a immigrant experience.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall these stories didn't appeal to me as much as those in Bezmozgis' earlier collection. I enjoyed the reappearance of Mark Berman in 'Childhood'. 'A New Gravestone for an Old Grave,' which I first read in Best American Short Stories, remains one of my all time favourite stories.

[Gavin Stephenson-Jackman · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting window of the immigrant experience and how it has shaped not only individuals but also us as a nation of immigrants. As someone who is many generations beyond the immigration stories of my own family it brings into focus some of the issues that immigrants have always faced as well as struggles that are unique in our modern world. Issues like the transfer of academic credentials, requalification, and work experience requirements. These are issues that did not exists when my family immigrated in the 1800s.

[Steven Langdon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is another excellent nominee short-listed for Canada's 2019 prestigious fiction award, the Giller Prize. It consists of seven probing and powerful short stories, all focused around the lives of Russian and Latvian immigrants in Toronto. I normally find novels much more engaging than short stories but these seven include some superb character studies and convey common themes about the disequilibriums of changing countries, retaining ties to former homelands and finding new lives in a complex city filled with many other immigrants.

I found the opening story, "Immigrant City," particularly good, with its interplay between earlier Jewish immigrants from Latvia and more recent black arrivals from Somalia, all revolving around the purchase of a replacement car door at the far end of the city after the narrator had damaged the original. The encounters between two different cultures are emotionally recounted, including how his daughter ends up receiving a hijab. As he carries the replacement door home on the subway, the narrator muses: "In an immigrant city, a city of innumerable struggles and ambitions, a white man with a car door and a daughter wearing a blue hijab attract less attention than you might expect."

Such subtle insights are everywhere in this fine book, explaining how it received the Giller nomination. Especially good are "Little Rooster," about a the aftermath of a wartime love affair, "A New Gravestone for an Old Grave," about a son's return to Latvia and the complications he finds in trying to complete his father's request to put a better tombstone on his brother's grave, and "The Russian Riviera," portraying a Russian boxer who comes to Canada hoping to compete and ends up working as the bouncer at a Russian-themed restaurant.

This book provides a deep and textured look at the new Canada that Toronto represents these days. It is beautifully written and very much worth reading.

[Andrew MacDonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I haven't been too blown away by his novels, Bezmozgis' first collection, NATASHA, ranks among my favourites. I love stories, and collections, and I'd already read two of the pieces in this one ("Gravestone" and "Russian Riviera") and loved them. I was hoping the rest of the stories would rise to their level.

Nope.

I'm comfortable with a story collection being uneven, and I recognize that much of the time a story will strike a cord and get into, say, the NYer (as Bezmozgis often does), and that will be the collection's centrepiece. That's clearly what happened here.

"A New Gravestone for an Old Grave" and "The Russian Riviera" are vintage Bezmozgis: they are impeccably structured stories, longer, very moving. I would put "Little Rooster" in this category too. The rest of the stories, though, feel more like half-stories, vignettes, than the kind of thing I've come to expect and love about DB's stuff. They end right when they're getting started and too often try to do the vague, Carver-esque thing where a small moment happens and we're meant to be touched by the abstract emotional epiphany of it all.

There's nothing wrong with that kind of story, and Carver has some doozies. The problem I think is that DB's strengths are elsewhere. He's a storyteller, gifted in the structural arts. He's not a line by line wonder, or a Lydia Davis / Gary Lutz bender of language. When I finished a few of these, I thought, wait, it's just getting started!

A worthwhile read for fans of NATASHA. For anyone noobs interested in exploring Bezmozgis, read that first. If it blows you away, pick up IMMIGRANT CITY. If it doesn't, you can always read the three stories I mention above piecemeal, in various venues.

[Trish S · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed all these stories. My favourites were "Immigrant City," "A New Gravestone for an Old Grave,"and "Roman's Song." In these three I found the characters and their circumstances so interesting and absorbing that I wished each story would continue into a novel. I also loved his first collection of stories, "Natasha."

[Guillaume Boisset · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gritty short stories centered around Soviet Jews ending up in North America and trying to integrate while constantly being pulled back to the past. A few gems, especially ones in which the protagonist is in the seamy side of town, on the edge of going over to the dark side, to where mafia bosses big and small want to run the underside of town but usually cannot quite make it. “The Russian Riviera” was pure pleasure to follow. “Roman’s Song” was similarly sweet. “A new Gravestone for an old Grave” didn’t have mafia but featured an old world inertia vs new world money vibe that resonated well. And always, the raising of seemingly innocuous transactions into finely-crafted tales in which ordinary events morph into almost but not quite extraordinary journeys, as in the first eponymous short story “Immigrant City”. Covering the sweep of history from the end of WWII to the fall of the Soviet Union and onward, the work is an added bonus for history buffs who want a touch of the personal beyond the headlines and history book chapter headings.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bezmozgis writes with such a style that is detached yet engaging. These short stories about people of the Russian and Latvian diaspora resonate with intelligence and regret. Valiant attempts to escape past dreadfulness and wrongdoings are ultimately shattered by endless loose ends. An "old country" gravestone for a grandfather, never finished; a box of old letters roiling up secrets and new heartaches; a car door, dented, leading to old memories and a "foreign" neighbourhood full of familiar tribulations and struggles. He writes what he knows without his heart bleeding all over his sleeve. I like that. I respect the universality of experience expressed; his work is always about more than just his characters and their problems. I recommend him highly.

[Ben Truong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Immigrant City is an anthology of seven short stories written by David Bezmozgis. Bezmozgis explores the fates and furies that beset Jewish immigrants as they struggle with the unwieldy claims of the past.

For the most part, this collection of short stories was written rather well. Immigrant City is a nice collection of short stories. All the stories are tragicomedies and explore the emotional depths in the immigrant encounter with a bewildering, often humiliating new world, where the past is shrouded in secrets, buried under layers of repression.

Like most anthologies there are weaker contributions and Immigrant City is not an exception. Comparatively speaking, a couple of entries are weaker than others or which did not connect to me well. However, these stories seem like outliers in a wonderful collection of short stories. Some of my favorites are: "Immigrant City", "How It Used to Be", "Little Rooster", "A New Gravestone for an Old Grave", and "The Russian Riviera".

All in all, Immigrant City is a wonderful collection that explores the immigrant experience from the Jewish perspective, but familiar to all who considers themselves immigrants.

[Lianne]

This title was my Christmas gift from a Canadian friend who keeps me up to date with current literary trends in Canada. This collection of short stories by David Bezmozgis demonstrates that extraordinary writers are continuing to create compelling fiction in "the true north strong and free."The author was born in Latvia and lives in Toronto, that multicultural metropolis. These seven stories present characters straddling the worlds of their origins and new situations. The author is the recipient of many awards and fellowships. His style is vivid and features a wry humor. Sometimes the protagonists must resolve mysteries from the old country, and confront contradictions and complexities. My favorite was "The Russian Riviera," in which Kostya leaves a promising boxing career in Siberia to become a doorman at a garish nightclub. Another poignant story follows a grandson's quest to learn what's in the Yiddish correspondence of his grandfather. Each short story wistfully puts past in perspective and brings memory up to date with current realities. There are no easy answers but the characters shine through and lead with their hearts.

[Jerry Levy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some gems amongst the stories, but not all. One thing for sure about Bezmozgis is that he can write extremely well. Here's an example from the very first story: " He told me of a Serbian mechanic who, if you paid him in cash and didn't ask any questions..." Ok, so why wasn't this sentence completed? Well, in fact it doesn't have to be. You can leave the remainder of the sentence to the reader's imagination. Basically, Bezmozgis trusts his readers and this is a sure sign of a writer who knows how to write, and write a short story. I also really liked some endings, which reminded me of Morley Callaghan's stories in that they simply tail off with no great reveal. How's this one: "Nora, it's our stop," I said. "Do you want to go home or keep going?" And the response from the protagonists' daughter: "Go home and keep going," she said. Ha! How's that for an ending? It leaves the reader searching and will take him/her time to digest the answer. Again, I didn't love all the stories but most were great. And it was such a pleasure to read.

[Alex Mulligan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reviewer below wrote they felt emotionally unconnected with some of characters, which perfectly sums up how I felt about some of the stories.

While some of the stories were beautiful, interesting, and even haunting, other stories were lacking.

I thought the book started very strong with the first Story about he father buying he car door. It was a beautifully written story and really set my hopes high. I found the middle stories were often slow, uneventful, and boring, with a couple exceptions. The book then ended strong with an excellent noir inspired finale.

Overall I would still recommend this book. Bezmozgis is a gifted and talented writer and while not all the stories were spoke to me, they were all well written and and had interesting morals.

3.5 for me