Tales from Mistwillow Book

This collection of six short stories is written in a style that is deceptively simple. Writer Gary Shteyngart, who, like Vapnyar, is a native Russian, calls it: "Eerie in its simplicity, stunning in its scope." Louis Menand calls Lara Vapnyar "Jane Austen with a Russian soul" who "blends coolness and pathos." Most of the stories take place in the former Soviet Union, with drab, cement buildings stretching for blocks, marked only by regular, regulation windows punctuating adjoining apartments.

Vapnyar puts me in mind of the wonderful Anouk Markovitz, whose novel, "I am Forbidden" kept me in its thrall long after I finished reading it. Both writers are Jewish emigrees. Each earned advanced degrees in Comparative Literature. The stories in this Vapnyar collection are about loss and longing, strength and resilience. They are told with an immigrant's sensibilities. They are stories from the mind gifted with great imagination and literary talent.

I read the first story last, having found myself incapable of plowing through it at first try. It's the longest story in the collection. After reading the shorter ones that came later, I returned to this, the collection's title story, and marveled. It is written with great skill, insight, depth, and passion. The title story, "There are Jews in My House," looks at the inner turmoil of a good woman whose sound moral compass, in tandem with decency and friendship, moves her to hide two Jewish friends from Nazis.

The second story, "Ovrashki's Trains," tells of the love of a daughter for her father. She waits for him daily. He never arrives.

The story "Lydia's Grove" is about a family that overcomes loss only to encounter shock. The narrator of the story, a teen-age girl, takes regular train trips, with her mother, to visit Lydia, the mother's writing partner. The two women collaborate on children's books. Lydia is warm but ugly. One day, they discover that she is a lesbian. The mother is jolted, the daughter confused. Lydia's lover moves in. She is cold and imperious. Lydia, who long longed for love, is miserable. Love, it turns out, has turned her into a slave. She serves her lover hand and foot. In the end, love aborts her beloved career. The visits end.