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Natasha
And Other Stories
by David Bezmozgis
A collection of stories, all about the Bermans, a Jewish Latvian family that has immigrated to Toronto, told from the point of view of the son, Mark.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 160 pages
06/09/2004
$18.00
ISBN: 0374281416
Fiction
Short Stories
All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...
Library Journal Tania Barnes
Taken alone, these stories are charming and pitch-perfect; together, they add up to something like life itself: funny, heartbreaking, terrible, true. [15 March 2004, p. 109]
London Review Of Books James Wood
It says much for David Bezmozgis's considerable talents that his apparently skinny, crafty, ironic stories, narrated entirely in the first person in simple, unmetaphorical prose, and fond of abrupt closures, should seem to dip so obviously into the common pool and yet avoid, on the whole, the commonest failings.
Los Angeles Times Daniel Schifrin
A minyan of marginal Jews -- this is the magic demographic that helped transform the work of Babel, Roth, Saul Bellow and so many others. Yet Bezmozgis makes these characters, and the state of marginality itself, uniquely his. This hysterical, merciless yet open-hearted excavation of a Jewish family in the process of assimilating gives his literary predecessors a run for their money. [6 June 2004, R13]
Publishers Weekly
Bezmozgis captures the insecurity and loneliness of recent immigrants while suggesting a child's guilty psychology with utter believability. These complex, evocative stories herald the arrival of a significant new voice.
Salon Jana Prikryl
The extraordinary thing about Bezmozgis is that his work deserves the unanimous praise it's gotten. The seven stories in "Natasha" are (mostly) so classical in their form and restraint that all the critical attention they've received suggests reviewers have been quietly pining for linear narratives strung together along a linear arc and told with a bit of reticence.
Houston Chronicle Harvey Grossinger
These stories are all exquisitely crafted. David Bezmozgis' vision is inclusive, complex and unerringly apt. Enjoy them all.
Kirkus Reviews
Shades of Isaac Babel, Leonard Michaels, and Aleksandar Hemon in a nevertheless irresistibly original first book.
LA Weekly Brendan Bernhard
Jewish immigrant literature is strewn with such stellar names as Bellow and Malamud and Roth and Singer and Babel, and Bezmozgis has worked hard to show that he belongs in the same company. If a certain self-consciousness is the inevitable result, it's a small price to pay for such a rewarding and promising collection.
The Independent Matthew J Reisz
Readers will soon discover that David Bezmozgis is a major new talent, and his collection a superb evocation of its time and place, and of people caught between two worlds.
San Francisco Chronicle Adam Baer
[A] taut, vivid and touching first collection of significant maturity and elegance that despite its author's many trendy qualities... is nothing more than a humble announcement that a new talent with a serious future has come to the fore.
The Economist
The voice in "Natasha" is assured, inviting and warm. Toronto's Russian community will be alien to most readers, but not by the end of his book.
New York Observer Elaine Blair
Bezmozgis writes with such assurance that it comes as something of a disappointment that he doesn't use his sensitive ear and comic gifts to examine domestic life more closely.
Booklist Donna Seaman
A bit hollow at the outset, more mica than marble, Bezmozgis' tales reach deeper and attain greater resonance as the collection unfolds, especially in Mark's wrenching recognitions of the legacy of the Holocaust and Soviet tyranny.
Boston Globe Amanda Heller
With intelligence and cool detachment, Bezmozgis adds his contribution to a long and rich North American literary tradition. It is too soon to invoke names like Malamud and Roth, but his is certainly a talent worth watching.
Chicago Tribune John Biguenet
If plotting is sometimes thin, Bezmozgis' stories are thick with memorable characters. [30 May 2004, C1]
The New York Times Book Review Meghan O'Rourke
Bezmozgis is talented, and one hopes he'll learn to better negotiate his stories' shifting gears. In the meantime, it's refreshing to encounter a generous, witty account of boyhood that doesn't rely on overwrought lyricism.
Village Voice Benjamin Strong
Bezmozgis's 1980s Toronto sounds a lot like America, a volatile mix of immigrants, ambition, kindness, and ice-cold greed.
Washington Post Keith Gessen
[Bezmozgis] has an understated, just-telling-it-like-it-happened style that, if not impressive, is remarkably self-assured; it is attuned to the stories he is telling, and its understatement is a function of the narrator's doubt.
Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
Smart but slight, Bezmozgis' debut offers a bracing variation on the familiar saga of the Jewish immigrant boy coming of age in a big North American city.
New York Review Of Books Evan Gillespie
At best, Natasha is a skeletal outline for a novel about Mark Berman. At worst, it's a sketchy collection of stories centered around a non-character.
The Guardian Josh Lacey
There is a whiff of the creative writing course - a hint that these neat tales have been crafted to please a teacher rather than to delight a reader. But Bezmozgis's prose is unusually assured, and suggests the hype may not be entirely exaggerated.
The Nation D.T. Max
This is a slim, well-observed collection, but it lacks span or muscle.
 The average user rating for this book is 5.0 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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