Welcome to Litsy!

My friend Shawn ( @shawnmooney ) read this entire book aloud to me over Voxer. He chuckled as he read & I chuckled as I listened. It‘s about a dysfunctional Russian family in Germany, told from the POV of Max, who grows from childhood into his teens under the pathologically overprotective watch of his grandmother, who is a horrible person. And yet Alina Bronsky treats the grandmother with subtle compassion, allowing the chance for empathy.

“Sometimes I think my mother is married to your grandmother,” Vera whispered in my ear.
“No, they hate each other,” I said, as if that would rule out marriage.

The narrator of this book is a young child, Max(i), who has recently moved with his grandparents into refugee housing in Germany. His grandmother used a distant family connection that was Jewish to get out of the crumbling USSR (but she makes it clear that she is anti-semitic...despite the fact that Max's father is Jewish, their neighbors are Jewish, etc.) ↘️

I woke up with a bit of a head cold so I am settling in with my new book from Europa Editions and a cup of Duke Cardiffs blend tea from Simpson & Vail on this drizzly Saturday