In January 1998, while the rest of her newsroom is chasing the Monica Lewinsky story, television journalist Jennifer Cohen gets a lead that takes her out of covering that scandal and deep into another one—the trafficking of sex slaves from the former Soviet Union into the United States. Knowing that the college crush she never quite forgot works for a St. Petersburg newspaper, she hires him to help out. Much to their surprise, they fall madly in love over thousands of miles of telephone line. Within weeks, Cohen finds herself engaged to marry a man she barely knows and on a plane to Russia. No one could have predicted the total collapse that followed—of the Russian economy, of her fiancé’s sobriety, of Cohen's mental health and physical safety, and of her professional aspirations.
Cohen's vivid descriptions of her life in anything-goes Moscow—bribing government officials, meeting pimps in back alleys for interviews, being told by her boss to perpetuate American clichés about Russia in her pieces—are a colorful counterpart to the despair and loneliness that replaces the love between Cohen and her betrothed. Their battles with prescription drugs, alcoholic rages, and physical abuse are recounted with perspective and wit, offering a smart, poignant, and unvarnished look at a complicated relationship in a complicated land.
| |||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From the Inside Flap
"Riveting. The love story is wistful, funny, and wise, woven into a moment in history, also seen with a candid and revealing eye. This is an original—a fresh voice, a great read, a memorable coming of age story."—Carol Gilligan, author of In a Different Voice and The Birth of Pleasure
"Jennifer Cohen writes fearlessly about love, betrayal, and self-discovery in the fresh setting of an expat in post-communist Russia. Anyone who has fallen for the wrong person, or sought adventure, will be captivated by this tale of a young woman learning to become herself amid the swirls and intrigues of Moscow and St. Petersburg."—Michele Mitchell, author of The Latest Bombshell
"Cohen's Russia is soaked in cigarette smoke, vodka, and sex for hire. She reveals the underside of Russian life, both in its day-to-day decay and the more sensational world of crime and corruption."—Tzivia Gover, author of Mindful Moments for Stressful Days
Terrace Books
About the Author
Jennifer Beth Cohen is an award-winning producer for CBS News/The Early Show and a writer based in New York City and Washington, D.C. She has been a news producer, documentary filmmaker, and a freelance journalist, and her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, New York, Maxim, and Allure. This is her first book.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lying to each other,
By Peter Lorenzi (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Lying Together: My Russian Affair (Hardcover)
A tragic comedy in many parts, "Lying together" has a clear double meaning, as we read about two very dysfunctional people lying to themselves as they lie in bed together in seedy Russian apartments.I have to say that enjoyed this book, yet also warn potential readers that the story has all the elements of a college-educated person's version of the Jerry Springer show. There are just so many bad decisions, alcoholic episodes, disorders, abused drugs, manic-depressive states, states of denial, blind spots, and excessive bravado. If this had been a novel, it may have been dismissed as too incredible to be true. Having spent some time in Russia in the 1990's, my sense is that book brings all too true. Sad, very sad, but true. By e-mail, Cohen falls inexplicably even irrationally for a less-than-almost crush, Kevin, and agrees to fly off to Russia, on a whim and promise of a political scandal. Perhaps she suffered to take on this relationship for the same reason she suffered from bulimia. She ought to know: her parents are a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist. She wants to deny that children of such parents can produce dysfunctional kids. The fact that the family talks about everything - her evidence of their normality - does not provide much cover for what is better described as some major gaps in translating values across generations. Once back in Moscow (she had studied there years earlier), she jumps right into a death defying if not death wish desire to document the sex and slave trade emanating from a scandalous, corrupt Russian society. The crush provides the contacts, the translation precision, and the stimulus to push the journalistic envelope. Only too soon does Cohen learn that her business is less about breaking stories and more about confirming clichés. And her stomping grounds, St. Petersburg and Moscow, offer plentiful fodder for clichés. She is most compelling when she documents the difficulty of life in these two cities today, from the violence, to the bribes, to the petty and not-so-petty corruption, the terrible architecture, the strip joints and gun-toting security guards, the tiny, rusty, domestic, automobiles alongside gleaming SUVs, the ongoing fatal fascination with cigarettes and vodka. The problem seems to be that she and Kevin fit too well into this marginal life, where living on the edge is the only place to live. Yes, the book is enjoyable, sometimes pretentious, and compelling (I read it in less than 24 hours, eager to see how Cohen pulls out of this mess). But it is a dark, stormy ride, giving me the most satisfaction to be able to say that I am glad that I was not foolish enough to engage in such a crazy pursuit. That's why Jerry Springer can be satisfying: I'm just glad that it wasn't me. At least Jen and Kevin earn some sympathy. Good luck in their next endeavors.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well written but near-sighted,
By
This review is from: Lying Together: My Russian Affair (Hardcover)
Although Jennifer Cohen paints a realistic and visually compelling picture of post-Soviet Moscow & St. Petersburg, I couldn't help but be angry with her failure and near-sightedness when it came to her opinions and her relationship with the country. She treats the whole of Russia as though it is entirely composed of the well developed capitalistic centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg without venturing beyond the boundaries of these cities to see that the majority of Russia is drastically different. Russia is an unbalanced country, it is no place for an unbalanced woman. From the moment I began reading about her love affair with the country I knew that her coming there was destined to be a failure. Her book is filled with hypocrysies about the lowliness and shallowness of Russian life and people which revolves around poverty, corruption, drugs, prostitution, and alcoholism. She is disgusted with these things and yet she fails to recognize the parallel themes between life in the U.S. and Russia like the fact that the widespread issue of alcoholism in russia is the equivalent of the American dependence on anti-depressents, with her and Kevin being the perfect examples - it's just a way to escape the real world. I thought the book would evoke feelings of respect for an American brave enough to leave her cushioned life and take up residence in an unknown and scary contry still trying to find itself, but all I felt was pity and disgust. I felt like she was an intruder and did not belong. Although the book was beautifully written I was left with a feeling of disappointment.
13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Heroine as Pitiful Monster,
By
This review is from: Lying Together: My Russian Affair (Hardcover)
Though she thinks she's writing a romance novel, Cohen has actually produced a grotesquely comic portrait of all that is most loathsome in contemporary American culture. She's self-righteous about all the wrong things: smoking, drinking, drugs and sex. But she has no shame at all about letting her tabloid news producer use her to hound any liberal targets he wants destroyed. In fact, she uses a rumor about Clinton administration officials visiting Moscow prostitutes to get him to finance her childish, silly pilgrimage to Russia to entrap "a man [she's] never so much as kissed." When their fanciful romance fails, she returns to a job with Fox Networks, convinced of her own rectitude. At last she has escaped evil Russia, where people drink, smoke and exchange sex for money. She's back home in Trumpland, where true morality reigns.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
