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In the midst of a marital crisis, Jane hatches an unusual plan to
avoid a custody battle, the thing she most fears: she convinces
husband Kevin to walk away from the pressures of New York—in
particular, her demanding job and an affair she almost had—in the
hope that moving to their favorite city abroad will fix their
family. In San Miguel de Allende, Jane and her young sons delight
in new adventures, but Kevin still seethes. Jane befriends a circle
of intriguing women and helps two girls who remind her of the
brother she abandoned when her own parents divorced. After
witnessing violence involving the girls’ father, Jane’s vivid
dreams, possibly guided by a hummingbird messenger from the
hereafter, grow ever darker. When tragedy strikes San Miguel, the
community fractures and then rises, and Jane must make a dangerous
choice. The Broken Hummingbird balances the raw undoing of a
marriage with the joys of discovery that lie in building a new
life.
Teffi's genius with the short form made her a literary star in
pre-revolutionary Russia, beloved by Tsar Nicholas II and Vladimir
Lenin alike. These stories, taken from the whole of her career,
show the full range of her gifts. Extremely funny - a wry, scathing
observer of society - she is also capable, as capable even as
Chekhov, of miraculous subtlety and depth of character. There are
stories here from her own life (as a child, going to meet Tolstoy
to plead for the life of War and Peace's Prince Bolkonsky, or, much
later, her strange, charged meetings with the already-legendary
Rasputin). There are stories of emigre society, its members held
together by mutual repulsion. There are stories of people
misunderstanding each other or misrepresenting themselves. And
throughout there is a sly, sardonic wit and a deep, compelling
intelligence.
BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week'Wonderfully idiosyncratic, coolly
heartfelt and memorable' William Boyd'One of the great writers of
early 20th Century Russia' Simon Sebag Montefiore'A remarkable
memoir . . . both potent and endearing' Erica Wagner, New Statesman
The writer and satirist Teffi was a literary sensation in Russia
until war and revolution forced her to leave her country for ever.
Memories is a blackly funny and heartbreaking account of her final,
frantic journey into exile across Russia - travelling by cart,
freight train and rickety steamer - and the 'ordinary and unheroic'
people she encounters. Fusing exuberant wit and bitter horror, this
is an extraordinary portrayal of what it means to say goodbye, and
confirms Teffi as one of the most humane, perceptive observers of
her times, and an essential writer for ours.
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