A dazzling debut, and a publishing phenomenon: the tender, savagely
funny collection from a young immigrant who has taken the critics
by storm. Few readers had heard of David Bezmozgis before May 2003,
when "Harper's, Zoetrope, "and" The New
Yorker" all printed stories from his forthcoming collection.
In the space of a few weeks, America thus met the Bermans--Bella
and Roman and their son, Mark--Russian Jews who have fled the Riga
of Brezhnev for Toronto, the city of their dreams. Told through
Mark's eyes, the stories in Natasha possess a serious wit and
uniquely Jewish perspective that recall the first published stories
of Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth, not to mention the recent work
of Jhumpa Lahiri, Nathan Englander, and Adam Haslett.
