Read You A Novel

On Sunday, in the New York Times Book Review, I was delighted to find a full page review of Gina Ochsner's latest book, The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight. It's a book I'm recommending to everyone I know and not just because the woman wrote a lovely blurb for my own little book. I'm telling people to read it because I haven't had such great luck with my adventures in reading lately.

I use the Sunday Times to give me guidance about books. I make a list in the back of my journal titled "Books To Read", but so many of those books fail to keep me in their stories and that, my friends, is what I want--to be kept like a mistress in the tight box of a good story. I've given up on famous books by famous writers who need better editing. I'm not naming names here. Suffice to say of the NY Times book list, I've started many and finished few. I've been aching for a story--a good, well-told story about characters I wanted to live with and cozy up tight with while my spring allergies rage. I wanted a book that could withstand a heavy dose of Benadryl and weepy red-rimmed eyes. A book that could keep me awake in bed and make me want to return to its unturned pages first thing in the morning.
When I saw that Gina Ochsner was about to publish her first novel, I was excited. I like her short stories a lot. She's won just about every literary award and grant for the quality of her amazing little stories, and she lives in Salem, Oregon, for chrissakes, so of course I've got to love her work, but novels are what I love best. And finally she has one!
I won't say too much about plot. I won't use words like magic realism or post modernity. I will say there's a place you've never been "The All-Russian All-Cosmopolitan Museum". There is grinding, horrific poverty.There are latrines and street kids and much to do about toaster ovens and icons. There is a character who dreams of being a fish and a dead man who refuses to be buried. And there is a woman who should be hopeless but isn't. Read this book. Read it now.