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    Natasha: And Other Stories
    Natasha: And Other Stories
    Natasha: And Other Stories
    Ebook155 pages2 hours

    Natasha: And Other Stories

    By David Bezmozgis

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Now a Major Motion Picture

    A dazzling debut—and a publishing phenomenon—Natasha: And Other Stories is 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 work of Jhumpa Lahiri, Nathan Englander, and Adam Haslett.

    Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' First Book Prize for Canada and the Caribbean, the Toronto Book Award, Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction, Koffler Centre of the Arts' Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Award for Fiction, the City of Toronto Book Award, the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize for Fiction, and the Moment Magazine Fiction Award

    Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and the Governor General’s Award for Literature, the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for Best First Collection of Short Fiction in the English Language

    Named a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year, a Los Angeles Times' 1 of the 25 Best Books of the Year, a New York Public Library's 25 Best Books to Remember, and a Chicago Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateApr 1, 2010
    ISBN9781429988650
    Natasha: And Other Stories
    Author

    David Bezmozgis

    DAVID BEZMOZGIS is an award-winning writer and filmmaker. His debut story collection, Natasha and Other Stories, won the Toronto Book Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book, and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. His first novel, The Free World, was a finalist for both the Governor General’s Award and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. His second novel, The Betrayers, was also a Giller Prize finalist and won the National Jewish Book Award. His writing has appeared in many publications, including the New Yorker, Harper’s, Zoetrope: All-Story and The Best American Short Stories. David Bezmozgis has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, a Radcliffe Fellow and a Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library. He is the director of the Humber School for Writers. Born in Riga, Latvia, he lives in Toronto.

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    Reviews for Natasha

    4.5/5

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    • 5/5
      Just wonderful and very real. The words flowed as easily as if I had been thinking of them myself. A great storyteller.
    • 4/5
      Natasha and Other Stories is comprised of seven short stories. I read "Tapka" and title story, "Natasha." The interesting thing about all seven stories is that they all center around one family, the Bermans. "Tapka" and "Natasha" center on Mark, the son."Tapka"Six year old Mark Berman falls in love with Tapka, his neighbor's tiny white Lhasa-apso, at first sight. He cares for this animal so deeply he and his cousin are bestowed care taking duties of Tapka. Until tragedy strikes.Best line, "With no English, no money, no job, and only a murky conception of what the future held, he wasn't equipped to admire Tapka on the Italian Riviera" (p 5)."Natasha"Ten years later, sixteen year old Mark develops feelings for his fourteen year old cousin, Natasha. She is wise beyond her years; much wiser than Mark. She teaches him a thing or two about coming of age.Best line, "She was calibrated somewhere between resignation and joy" (p 90).
    • 5/5
      This book was the winner of several literary prizes and on the shortlist for many more. I was swept away by these stories of the Latvian Jewish immigrant experience. Watch this young man.
    • 4/5
      3.5 starsThis is a book of short stories focusing on Russian Jews who have immigrated to Toronto, Ontario. I liked that these stories followed the same people, or the same general group of people, and the same characters tended to pop up in different stories. I'm not always a fan of short stories because I find they end before I'm finished reading about the characters. So, it was nice to have them continue.
    • 5/5
      Roman Berman, his wife and their son emigrate from Latvia to Toronto in 1980 with "no English, no money, no job and only a murky conception of what the future held." In the course of the seven stories that comprise David Bezmozgis's debut collection, Natasha, we'll witness the Bermans slowly, painfully assimilate into North American culture, mainly through the eyes of the son, Mark. He's six years old in the first story, "Tapka," in which he and a cousin are put in charge of dog-sitting a Russian neighbor's beloved Lhasa-apo. Things do not go well—the dog runs into traffic—and the story concludes with a hard, crunchy epiphany (which seems a bit deep for a six-year-old mind): "There is reality and then there is truth." There's plenty of both in Bezmozgis's fiction, too. So much truth, in fact, that the collection reads like thinly-veiled autobiography. Like Mark, Bezmozgis was born in Latvia and moved to Toronto when he was six. He writes with authority about dislocation and assimilation. In "The Second Strongest Man," we watch patriarch Roman, "a struggling massage therapist and schlepper of chocolate bars," get a temporary job as a judge for an international weightlifting championship. Two of the competitors are old friends, but when he goes to meet them at their hotel, he bumps into a KGB agent, also an old acquaintance, who is there to make sure the athletes get back on the plane to Russia. The scene is nicely balanced between tension and compassion: The agent was surprised to see my father —Roman Abramovich, you're here? I didn't see you on the plane. My father explained that he hadn't taken the plane. He lived here now. A sweep of my father's arm defined "here" broadly. The sweep included me. My jacket, sneakers, and Levi's were evidence. Roman Abramovich and his kid lived here. The KGB agent took an appreciative glance at me. He nodded his head. —You're living well? —I can't complain. —It's a beautiful country. Clean cities. Big forests. Nice cars. I also hear you have good dentists. Bezmozgis subtly captures the joy, frustration and fear of what it was like to be a Soviet refusenik in the 1980s. The linked stories follow Mark into adulthood, but the best of the bunch is the titular story which finds the boy at the crossroads of his hormone-fueled teenage years. In "Natasha," 16-year-old Mark lives in the basement where he smokes hash, watches television, reads and masturbates. When his 14-year-old cousin Natasha arrives and he's given the job of keeping her occupied during the summer, he's surprised to find the tables turned on him when she casually removes her clothes and plops down in his beanbag chair. She turned to me and said, very simply, as if it were as insignificant to her as it was significant to me: Do you want to? At sixteen, no expert but no virgin, I lived in a permanent state of want to. With the experienced Natasha ("I've done it a hundred times") as his teacher, Mark soon learns that sex "could be as perfunctory as brushing your teeth." The story culminates with a string of sentences that tie the preceding 10,000 words together with something akin to a symphonic timpani-roll/cymbal-crash. After Natasha turns the tables on him yet again, a devastated but determined Mark returns to his house: I saw my future clearly. I had it all planned out. And yet, standing in our backyard, drawn by a strange impulse, I crouched and peered through the window into my basement. I had never seen it from this perspective. I saw what Natasha must have seen every time she came to the house. In the full light of summer, I looked into darkness. It was the end of my subterranean life. It's moments like this which lift Natasha and Other Stories beyond the ordinary and into the realm of heart-stopping art. Bezmozgis times his delivery with the precision of a watchmaker. On the whole, there's nothing flashy about the stories; the sentences move forward with steady, unadorned purpose and the full effect of Bezmozgis's talent doesn't sink in until hours after you've stopped reading. Yet, there's something compelling and earnest that lies invisible at the heart of this family portrait. It's the faith that helps us overcome hardship and gives us hope that we can ascend from the dark basement of our lives.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This is a slim volume of lovely, loosely interconnected short stories about a Jewish immigrants in Toronto in the latter part of the 20th century, seen through the eyes of the family's only son, Mark, who grows from a young boy to a young adult over the course of the stories. The Berman family has moved from Russia to Toronto during the Glasnost period that saw a new wave of Russian Jews fleeing from the old world to the new. The early stories deal with the transition from one culture to the other, while the later ones deal largely but subtly with issues of identity and loss. My two favorite stories were "The Second Strongest Man," which portray, through young Mark's eyes, some stark differences between the family's old existence and their new one, and "Minyan," the volume's final story, which is deals in very human terms the gradual fading of the old world Jewish culture as the generation that had brought that culture to new shores dies out. "The Second Strongest Man," by the way, is the only one of these stories that I recognized as having read before, in some anthology or other somewhere along the line.Here, from "Minyan," is a sample of Bezmozgis' perfect-pitch writing:"After the rabbi spoke he asked if there was anyone who wanted to say anything more about Itzik. Herschel, who sat between me and my grandfather, wiped his eyes and looked over at Itzik's son. Itzik's son did not look up from the floor. Nobody moved and the rabbi shifted nervously beside Itzik's coffin. He looked around the room and asked again if there wasn't someone who had a few words to say about Itzik's life. If someone had something to say and sat in silence, they would regret it. Such a time is not the time for shyness. Itzik's spirit was in the room. To speak a kind word about the man would be a mitzvah. Finally, using my knee for support, Hershel raised himself from the pew and slowly made his way to the front of the chapel. Each of Herschel's steps punctuated silence. His worn tweed jacket and crooked back delivered a eulogy before he reached the coffin. His posture was unspeakable grief. What could he say that could compare with the eulogy of his wretched back?"
    • 4/5
      This was a collection of short stories loosely related (some looser than others) about Russian Jewish immigrants living in Toronto and how they adjust to Canadian life... eh.Bezmozgis, as is the case with many 'new' writers, is compared to just about every living and dead writer that has made their mark in the literary world... well, forget about the comparisons. Bezmozgis speaks his own voice... oy, eh.Short story collections are hard for me to rate. Some of these stories deserve 5 stars some 3. So if my math is correct, I give the book a 4. The title story 'Natasha' is probably my favorite story in the book and I'm assuming Mr Bezmozgis was partial to this one too since he stuck the name on the cover... although I like the title 'Roman Berman, Massage Therapist' better.
    • 5/5
      A collection of interlinked stories about the immigrant experience of Latvian Jews who come to Toronto in the 80s told from the point of view of the son who is six in the first story and an adult in his twenties in the last. The stories are told with wit and compassion, and are nicely unsentimental. Although, they seem to be about the specific Russian Jewish Canadian immigrant experience, they are also universal in many ways in showing general immigrant experience, feelings about the past life in the former country, religious identity, coming of age. All characters are flawed and very human, and each story finishes with a little epiphany that contributes wisdom for the development of the narrator.Highly recommended, especially if you enjoyed Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Lewycka. Bezmozgis has a flare for really telling details.
    • 4/5
      This collection captures the memories of a young boy turning into a man. The first stories are poignant with a boy grappling with adult truths and the later ones are harsh lessons experienced by a young man coming to terms with life. The style is pure and simple. A delight to read.
    • 3/5
      I find reviewing linked stories a challenge. Generally, I don't read short stories at all (except for those by Alice Munro), but I am reading all the "Canada Reads" nominees. The stories are well written and, taken together, give us a portrayal of a Russian Jewish family who have immigrated to Toronto, largely through the eyes of their son, Mark, who is 6 years old in the first story an an adult by the final one. I must admit, I can't help but wonder if a novel would have given us much more insight into this family and those who came in touch with them.

    Book preview

    Natasha - David Bezmozgis

    Tapka

    Goldfinch was flapping clotheslines, a tenement delirious with striving. 6030 Bathurst: insomniac scheming Odessa. Cedarcroft: reeking borscht in the hallways. My parents, Baltic aristocrats, took an apartment at 715 Finch fronting a ravine and across from an elementary school—one respectable block away from the Russian swarm. We lived on the fifth floor, my cousin, aunt, and uncle directly below us on the fourth. Except for the Nahumovskys, a couple in their fifties, there were no other Russians in the building. For this privilege, my parents paid twenty extra dollars a month in rent.

    In March of 1980, near the end of the school year but only three weeks after our arrival in Toronto, I was enrolled in Charles H. Best elementary. Each morning, with our house key hanging from a brown shoelace around my neck, I kissed my parents goodbye and, along with my cousin Jana, tramped across the ravine—I to the first grade, she to the second. At three o’clock, bearing the germs of a new vocabulary, we tramped back home. Together, we then waited until six for our parents to return from George Brown City College, where they were taking their obligatory classes in English.

    In the evenings we assembled and compiled our linguistic bounty.

    Hello, havaryew?

    Red, yellow, green, blue.

    May I please go to the washroom?

    Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenny.

    Joining us most nights were the Nahumovskys. They attended the same English classes and traveled with my parents on the same bus. Rita Nahumovsky was a beautician, her face spackled with makeup, and Misha Nahumovsky was a tool and die maker. They came from Minsk and didn’t know a soul in Canada. With abounding enthusiasm, they incorporated themselves into our family. My parents were glad to have them. Our life was tough, we had it hard—but the Nahumovskys had it harder. They were alone, they were older, they were stupefied by the demands of language. Being essentially helpless themselves, my parents found it gratifying to help the more helpless Nahumovskys.

    After dinner, as we gathered on cheap stools around our table, my mother repeated the day’s lessons for the benefit of the Nahumovskys and, to a slightly lesser degree, for the benefit of my father. My mother had always been a dedicated student and she extended this dedication to George Brown City College. My father and the Nahumovskys came to rely on her detailed notes and her understanding of the curriculum. For as long as they could, they listened attentively and groped toward comprehension. When this became too frustrating, my father put on the kettle, Rita painted my mother’s nails, and Misha told Soviet jokes.

    In a first-grade classroom a teacher calls on her students and inquires after their nationality. Sasha, she says. Sasha says, Russian. Very good, says the teacher. Arnan, she says. Arnan says, Armenian. Very good, says the teacher. Lubka, she says. Lubka says, Ukrainian. Very good, says the teacher. And then she asks Dima. Dima says, Jewish. What a shame, says the teacher, so young and already a Jew.

    The Nahumovskys had no children, only a white Lhasa Apso named Tapka. The dog had lived with them for years before they emigrated and then traveled with them from Minsk to Vienna, from Vienna to Rome, and from Rome to Toronto. During our first month in the building, Tapka was in quarantine and I saw her only in photographs. Rita had dedicated an entire album to the dog, and to dampen the pangs of separation, she consulted the album daily. There were shots of Tapka in the Nahumovskys’ old Minsk apartment, seated on the cushions of faux Louis XIV furniture; there was Tapka on the steps of a famous Viennese palace; Tapka at the Vatican; in front of the Coliseum; at the Sistine Chapel; and under the Leaning Tower of Pisa. My mother—despite having grown up with goats and chickens in her yard—didn’t like animals and found it impossible to feign interest in Rita’s dog. Shown a picture of Tapka, my mother wrinkled her nose and said foo. My father also couldn’t be bothered. With no English, no money, no job, and only a murky conception of what the future held, he wasn’t equipped to admire Tapka on the Italian Riviera. Only I cared. Through the photographs I became attached to Tapka and projected upon her the ideal traits of the dog I did not have. Like Rita, I counted the days until Tapka’s liberation.

    The day Tapka was to be released from quarantine Rita prepared an elaborate dinner. My family was invited to celebrate the dog’s arrival. While Rita cooked, Misha was banished from their apartment. For distraction, he seated himself at our table with a deck of cards. As my mother reviewed sentence construction, Misha played hand after hand of Durak with me.

    —The woman loves this dog more than me. A taxi to the customs facility is going to cost us ten, maybe fifteen dollars. But what can I do? The dog is truly a sweet little dog.

    When it came time to collect the dog, my mother went with Misha and Rita to act as their interpreter. With my nose to the window, I watched the taxi take them away. Every few minutes, I reapplied my nose to the window. Three hours later the taxi pulled into our parking lot and Rita emerged from the back seat cradling animated fur. She set the fur down on the pavement, where it assumed the shape of a dog. The length of its coat concealed its legs, and as it hovered around Rita’s ankles, it appeared to have either a thousand tiny legs or none at all. My head ringing Tapka, Tapka, Tapka, I raced into the hallway to meet the elevator.

    That evening Misha toasted the dog:

    —This last month, for the first time in years, I have enjoyed my wife’s undivided attention. But I believe no man, not even one as perfect as me, can survive so much attention from his wife. So I say, with all my heart, thank God our Tapka is back home with us. Another day and I fear I may have requested a divorce.

    Before he drank, Misha dipped his pinkie finger into his vodka glass and offered it to the dog. Obediently, Tapka gave Misha’s finger a thorough licking. Duly impressed, my uncle declared her a good Russian dog. He also gave her a lick of his vodka. I gave her a piece of my chicken. Jana rolled her a pellet of bread. Misha taught us how to dangle food just out of Tapka’s reach and thereby induce her to perform a charming little dance. Rita also produced Clonchik, a red and yellow rag clown. She tossed Clonchik under the table, onto the couch, down the hallway, and into the kitchen; over and over Rita called, Tapka get Clonchik, and, without fail, Tapka got Clonchik. Everyone delighted in Tapka’s antics except for my mother, who sat stiffly in her chair, her feet slightly off the ground, as though preparing herself for a mild electric shock.

    After the dinner, when we returned home, my mother announced that she would no longer set foot in the Nahumovskys’ apartment. She liked Rita, she liked Misha, but she couldn’t sympathize with their attachment to the dog. She understood that the attachment was a consequence of their lack of sophistication and also their childlessness. They were simple people. Rita had never attended university. She could derive contentment from talking to a dog, brushing its coat, putting ribbons in its hair, and repeatedly throwing a rag clown across the apartment. And Misha, although very lively and a genius with his hands, was also not an intellectual. They were good people, but a dog ruled their

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