One More Year
by Sana Krasikov
Published by Spiegel & Grau
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Reviewed by Michele Heather Pollock
Like its author, One More Year has roots in both Russia and America, relying on the histories and idiosyncrasies of both parts of the world to tell its stories. This is a book of the immigrant experience, but its characters are so well written that it becomes also, much to Krasikov’s credit, a book of compelling stories about compelling women.
Sana Krasikov has created characters that try to fit into a new place after leaving an old one, but who find that it requires not only great acts of courage, but also the humblest and most necessary things of daily life as well: friendship, resiliency, love.
Although the women whose voices populate these stories vary considerably, from a middle-aged wife trying to face her husband’s infidelity to a young woman forced to take out a restraining order against her own husband, they share desires common not only to the immigrant experience–the search for a new identity to match new surroundings, a longing for home–but also desires common to all people at some point in their lives.
America has, of course, a rich immigrant history, and there have therefore been countless stories and novels written about the experience. Krasikov does something interesting in One More Year. In several of the stories, she turns the expectations upside down. In “Maia in Yonkers,” for example, instead of a son coming to America to find his fortune, leaving the older generation behind, the mother comes instead to work minimum wage jobs to support her son left behind in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. When he comes to America to visit her, she doesn’t recognize who he has become. “The Repatriats” begins in America, but soon moves to Moscow when a husband decides he must return to chase his dreams. His wife, disappointed with having to leave America after creating a nice life for herself, must grapple with the meaning of her life and her place in a crumbling marriage.
These stories are beautifully crafted, and though desolate and full of struggles, manage to contain enough hope to break your heart.
Armchair Interviews says: Thoughtful stories make up this collection.