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"This comedy of errors is a page-turner, where a mail-order bride
service, enough love triangles to boggle the mind, a stolen Egon
Schiele painting, and a devastating fire lead the worlds of Santa
Barbara and Chis ina u to collide." -Los Angeles Review of Books An
exhilaratingly comical, crosscultural debut novel, The Wife Who
Wasn't brings together an eccentric community from the hills of
Santa Barbara, California, and a family of Russians from Chisinau,
the capital of Moldova. It starts in the late 1990s, after the fall
of communism, and has at its center the mail-order marriage between
a California man (Sammy) and a Russian woman (Tania) who comes to
America, which engenders a series of hilarious cultural
misunderstandings. The novel's four parts take place alternately in
California and Moldova, and comprise short chapters whose point of
view moves seamlessly between that of the omniscient narrator and
that of various characters. Delivered in arresting prose, both
realities-late 90s, bohemian/hipster California and postcommunist
Moldova-thus come together from opposite points of view. Above all,
this novel is a comedy of manners that depicts the cultural (and
personality) clash between Tania and Sammy, Anna (Sammy's teenage
daughter) and Irina, and Bill (Sammy's neighbor) and Serioja
(Tania's brother). It is also a comedy of errors in the tradition
of playful, multiple love triangles. The novel reaches a shocking
climax involving a stolen Egon Schiele painting and alluding to the
real history of East Mountain Drive, whose bohemian community was
destroyed in the 2008 "Tea Fire." A literary tour de force and a
rollicking satire of both suburban America and urban Eastern
Europe, is a must for fans of Gary Schteyngart (The Russian
Debutante's Handbook), Keith Gessen (A Terrible Country), Ludmila
Ulitskaya (), and Lara Vapnyar (Divide Me By Zero).
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The Darkroom (Paperback)
Marguerite Duras; Introduction by Jean-Luc Nancy; Translated by Alta Ifland
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R395
R328
Discovery Miles 3 280
Save R67 (17%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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