2008, ONE MORE YEAR: Stories. By Sana Krasikov. (ISBN: 0385524390)

Book Description: Spiegel & Grau, New York, New York, U.S.A., 2008. Stated First Edition, number line on copyright page reads 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2. Light Green Hard Cover Boards and Blue Cloth Spine With Silver Text. This is a First Edition remainder book which is new and never used. Book has a red felt pen remainder mark on the bottom edge of the pages. 229 pages + acknowledgments page, 6" x 8.5" tall, .75" thick. New copy. Never read. Not price clipped. Beautiful copy of book and dust jacket. COLLECTOR'S COPY.

Book Condition: Brand New.

Dust Jacket Condition: Brand New. NON price-clipped DJ [$21.95 US].

About This Book: The very highly praised first book - a collection of eight short stories - by this author who (like many of her characters) was born in the Ukraine, grew up in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, and emigrated to the US. Cover praise from Yiyun Li and Khaled Hosseini, among others.

Synopsis: A debut collection of short fiction by a recipient of the O. Henry Award is populated by characters--mostly displaced women--who, despite the odds and challenges in their lives, continue to hold out hope that the love in their lives will make everything all right. 30,000 first printing.

Reviews: "Krasikov's cast of exiles, refugees and repatriates are...people moving in and out of love--or what passes for it. She has written a sensitive book about the economics of relationships...." --Gaiutra Bahadur, New York Times Book Review, 09/28/2008

Reviewed by Michelle Reale:

Sana Krasikov’s stories excel at atmosphere. While much has been made of the fact that the stories are not exactly uplifting, upon reading the collection of eight masterfully written stories, one will feel as though they have caught a glimpse of something, an experience, perhaps, of something totally out of their comfort zone. These stories are about dislocation in both the traditional sense of the uneasy feeling peculiar to all immigrants, but also in a metaphorical sense: that there is more wrong, than right with certain lives, wherever one may find oneself. These stories are written as one might paint a picture; the images are stark, sad. Satisfactory resolution is sometimes way off the mark, but more often just slightly out of reach. 

Krasikov's luminous writing reveals characters whose experiences are universal. The farther away they are from their home country and the more they find out about themselves, the more poignant the stories become. These stories are often a sad portrait of those in search of a better life, wherever that might be, filled with the sense that things are exponentially more difficult in a country not your own, made even more so by the extreme desire to belong, or, in some cases, merely get by. 

In the story Companion, Ilona is a companion to an elderly man, a job held my many immigrants, while trying to cobble together a life of her own. When she makes small steps toward setting boundaries between her workday world and a life that might be possible, a tragedy ensues. One can feel the claustrophobic atmosphere that Ilona slogs through every day, a life that puzzles her prosperous friends from the old country. 

In the story Debt, an uncle awaits the visit of his newly-married niece. While he cringes at the limitations she has set on her own existence at such a young age, and is suspicious at the man she has yoked herself to, he knows why she has come, but gives her every opportunity to redeem herself. While the reader may correctly anticipate the ending, the feeling it leaves is one that most will relate to: to vow always to avoid having to stoop so low. 

In Maia in Yonkers, Maia has been living in the United States and sending money back to her son. When he comes to visit, mother and son are desperately out of sync emotionally and, as a result, almost totally unable to have any meaningful communication. Maia’s son Gogi is welcomed by the sights of a drab city on an ordinary day: 

On the train back to Yonkers, Gogi is quiet, watching the river of homebound traffic. He glances around at the commuters, men with briefcases on their laps leafing through the New York Post. He turns back to the two-toned world outside the window, and his eyes follow the cars on the expressway that narrows with the tracks, then angles away sharply into the engulfing wilderness. He finds little to see out here besides the beige cubes of storage depot, walls defaced with graffiti, a row of retired school buses bafflingly painted white. These are the back doors of towns, their ugliest parts, Maia thinks. She is ashamed that this is what Gogi must see first. 

Krasiskov’s characters suffer in a variety of ways. No matter which locale the stories are situated in and irrespective of whether they have just arrived in their new home or choose to go back and make it in the old, they do so with the smallest bit of hope. The title itself, One More Year, gives testament to that. In the end, perhaps they obey, unknowingly, Diderot’s dictum: “We are where we think we are. Neither time nor distance makes any difference.”

About The Author: Sana Krasikov (born Ukraine) is a writer living in the United States. She grew up in the Republic of Georgia, as well as the United States. She graduated from Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Her work appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Virginia Quarterly, Epoch, and Zoetrope.

Sana Krasikov - winner, 2009 Sami Rohr Prize

Sana Krasikov currently lives in New York, though she was born in the Ukraine and grew up in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia as well as the United States. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, a recipient of an O.Henry Award and a Fulbright Scholarship. Her stories have a appeared in a variety of venues, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Virginia Quarterly, Epoch and Zoetrope. She is currently at work on a novel. 

Works:

• One More Year, Random House, August 12, 2008, ISBN 978-0-385-52439-1

Awards:

• O. Henry Award
• Fulbright Scholarship.
• National Book Foundation's “5 Under 35” (2008)
• New York Public Library Young Lions Finalist (2009)
• Finalist for 2009 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for a distinguished first book of fiction
• 2009 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Fiction
• 2009 National Magazine Award Nomination (for Virginia Quarterly Review)

Interview with Sana Krasikov:

The Short Review: How long did it take you to write all the stories in your collection?

Sana Krasikov:  I started them around 2004, and completed the last story in 2007, then spent a while editing them.

TSR: Did you have a collection in mind when you were writing them?

SK: Not really. I always loved short stories, so it was natural for me to start with them. I tended to get hypnotized by stories that let me glimpse at the shape of an entire life. I remember reading John Updike’s story, The Other about a man who marries an identical twin, and then watches her change over the years. Eventually – I forgot the circumstances – he ends up sleeping with the sister, who is by then a tan, leathery-skinned California version of his pale soft wife. I loved Updike’s ability to commit to the characters over a lifetime. It made the story feel almost like an ode.

TSR: How did you choose which stories to include and in what order?

SK: A couple of stories weren’t included – one of which was among my favorites. In the end I decided to sacrifice it for some thematic unity – it’s like having a fashion collection – the pieces have to stand alone but they have to echo each other too. Otherwise what you got is a bargain rack at T.J. Max.

TSR: What does the word "story" mean to you?

SK: It’s a good question. When I wrote stories, I’d always start with a situation that seemed to be one way at the beginning and another way at the end. Sometimes the characters changed and sometimes they didn’t. But I’ve changed over the past two years, and I want new characters to go through some growth as well.

TSR: Do you have a "reader" in mind when you write stories?

SK:  I think there’s something dangerous about this. My first commitment is always to the reality of characters and the world of the story. I want to be so inside it that I can’t even imagine it as “fiction.”

TSR: Is there anything you'd like to ask someone who has read your collection, anything at all?

 I was listening to Betty Wright the other night - I discovered her accidentally on the internet listening to Angie Stone, and I thought, goodness, I can't believe I haven't been listening to this woman for the past nine years. And you know, Betty Wright, who lives in Miami, will probably never know who I am. And there's something beautiful about that. TSR: How does it feel knowing that people are buying your book?

SK:

TSR: What are you working on now?

I'm trying to start a novel.SK:

TSR: What are the three most recent short story collections you've read?

SK: I read Joan Silber’s Ideas of Heaven. Her story The High Road is worth it alone. Talk about someone who knows how to write about Morality; she’s like Aristotle. I’ve been re-reading Russell Banks’ Success Stories. It’s interesting to read the short stories of a novelist I admire so much – it’s like finding a hidden facet of somebody you think you know well. I’ve also discovered Ivan Bunin. Probably the most American of the Russian writers.