Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #925865 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-20
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .78" h x 5.26" w x 7.94" l, .68 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
This tale of Ukrainian immigrants' attempts at adjustment to life in America has a dreamy affect, but its undercurrent of emotional honesty gives it bite. Nick, a Boston doctor, is drawn back to his hometown of Elizabeth, N.J., by the news that his childhood friend Alex is in trouble although he does not yet know what kind of trouble. He finds first that Alex's mother, Ada, once vibrant and attractive, is now embittered, lonely and nearly blind. Nick reminisces about his past, focusing on memories of his friend for most of the book. As a child, Alex was mischievous, but eventually became more and more wild, due in part to his father's abuse and subsequent abandonment. Throughout the novel he is agitated by society and by his own psyche, gradually losing his sanity. Melnyczuk (What Is Told) writes exceedingly well-controlled miniature narratives that begin as soft-focus reveries and develop into darker tales that confidently clinch the attention and release it just as smoothly. One of Alex's mother's early lovers seems gentle during their initial courtship, then expresses sadomasochistic desires; she pursues another failed romance with an ‚migr‚ poet. Even the story of the narrator's marriage is laced with strife: his wife confesses that she had rejected his earliest advances because he was Ukrainian and she was Jewish. The book drifts in a Proustian fashion, vividly portraying the difficulties of cultural assimilation until the jarring conclusion. Recollections that might have fizzled in another author's hands here grow luminous and haunting.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This ambitious, harrowing novel by AGNI editor Melnyczuk (What Is Told) tells of Ada Kruk, an innocent Ukrainian girl victimized by cruelty and violence during World War II. During the occupation of her homeland, Ada is brutally raped by a soldier one winter night on her way home from skating at a local pond. Soon after, her father is arrested and murdered by the occupying Nazis. The memories of these and other atrocities haunt Ada for the rest of her life long after the war ends and long after she immigrates to the United States and begins a family of her own. Battered and confused, Ada is a deeply tragic figure, and Melnyczuk tells her story with great sympathy and insight. As Ada's narrative unfolds, Melnyczuk also explores profound questions related to violence, the weight of the past, and the kind of pain from which it is impossible to recover. A very powerful and disturbing novel; recommended for all libraries. Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Nick Blud returns to his old New Jersey neighborhood at the request of Ada Kruk, the mother of a boyhood friend. Not ready to explain why she invited him, Ada stalls by recounting stories of the past. At Ada's insistence, Nick chronicles what he knows of the Kruk family history. After the family emigrated from the Ukraine, Ada and her sons found themselves abandoned by her husband. She took solace in the company of men and in speaking to the ghosts of her dead relatives. She was adamant regarding teaching her sons about the country they left behind, and mourned the life she could have had and the choices she should have made. But the history of the Kruk family isn't finished until Ada tells the final chapter, revealing the tragic reason she called on Nick. Through the story of the Kruks, Melnyczuk intelligently explores the problems of assimilation, the pain of war, and the fear of leaving the past behind, and he poignantly captures the disillusionment and disappointment when the American dream never materializes. Carolyn Kubisz
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