One More Year: Stories (Hardcover)

by Sana Krasikov (Author)
Key Phrases: New York, Nizhniy Novgorod, Wall Street (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In her stunning short story debut, Krasikov hones in on the subtleties of hope and despair that writhe in the hearts of her protagonists, largely Russian and Georgian immigrants who have settled on the East Coast. In Better Half, 22-year-old Anya gets a protection order against her husband, Ryan, after he attacks her; he pleads for forgiveness, but, Anya realizes, a future with Ryan would be like staying in Russia. In The Repatriates a man returns to Moscow—to his wife's disappointment—intent on applying to the Russian stock market some tricks he picked up on Wall Street. In Maia in Yonkers, a Georgian immigrant is visited by her son, and the tensions are fierce and palpable. In The Alternate, Victor meets the Americanized daughter of an old love from Russia. Though many of Krasikov's stories are bleak, there are swells of promise; even Lera, whose husband leaves her for another woman, suddenly felt nothing but the most pure-hearted compassion for him, a kindness and forgiveness that almost broke her heart. Krasikov's prose is precise, and her stories are intelligent, complex and passionate. (Aug.)
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From Booklist
Many of Krasikov’s characters in her captivating debut are immigrants of the former Soviet Union, searching for, and often finding, resilience in life and love. In the heartrending “Maia in Yonkers,” Maia, a Georgian immigrant, scrupulously plans her son’s visit to New York, where she works as a caretaker. When the two embark on a tour of the city, the tension between Maia’s expectations for her son and his juvenile indifference swells to an anxious climax. “The Alternate” follows Victor as he comes to term with the life he left behind during a dinner with the brash American daughter of his former Russian lover. In “Debt,” Lev, a loving uncle who built a new life in America, struggles with a request from his wayward niece, Sonya, who only appears in her uncle’s life when she is in need. Krasikov’s careful prose augments the quiet complexity of her characters as they confront love and loss within an unfamiliar landscape. Despite their melancholic situations, the protagonists in these eight tales still manage to find moments of reckoning and grace. --Leah Strauss

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Spiegel & Grau (August 12, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385524390
• ISBN-13: 978-0385524391
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #147,726 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful collection of short stories, August 12, 2008

By	Mint910 (USA) - See all my reviews

One More Year is a collection of short stories that explore the lives of people from the former Soviet Union. Some have immigrated to the United States and others still live or have returned to Russia. The collection explores all sorts of relationships, from care takers, to husband and wife, to uncle and niece. Many different parts of life are captures as snapshots.

Some of my favorite stories include Asal, about a relationship not normally talked about, Better Half about a young couple that marries too soon so one can remain in the United States, and There Will Be No Fourth Rome about an aunt and her niece.

To me, the stories slowly reveal themselves like peeling back an onion. You know so little in the beginning and slowly more and more information is revealed. I really like this style of writing, it keeps you on your toes and you have to pay very close attention. It's not just laid out from page one.

It is a quiet sort of collection that explores everyday life, but not the life that I'm used to or the struggles I've had to face. For that, I really enjoy it. I feel like I learned things I hadn't really known or thought about much before. I can definitely understand the comparisons to Jhumpa Lahiri. I have read her novel The Namesake, which I also enjoyed.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The week I read this, Russia had a mini-war with Georgia, giving these stories extra relevance and resonance!, August 13, 2008

By	Suzi Hough "http://fashion_piranha.livejourna... (San Jose, CA United States) - See all my reviews

One More Year, a debut collection of short stories by Sana Krasikov, really surprised me. Due to inherent space limitation in the short story format, it can be quite difficult to build fully-realized human characters. So as I read I was quite delighted by the vast variety of personalities and individual quirks of Krasiknov's cast. With a delicate prose and crisp dialogue, grandmothers, fathers, husbands and children are brought to active, animated life.

Most of the people populating the stories are Russian immigrants living in America. Some have been here a long time, escaping during the rise of Communism; others are new and have only been in the United States a few years. Frequently, characters fly back and forth between America and the "mother country" as relationships shatter or kindle anew. Krasikov is drawing on her own experiences; she was born in Ukraine while there was still a Soviet Republic and now lives in New York City.

These aren't happy fairy tale stories with happy endings. There's no magic, just gritty realism. Yet, despite my preference for fantasy I really dig this book. The situations for most of these people are far from ideal, or even desirable. Many of the women have cheating lovers or husbands, who may have a second wife "back home." One woman works as a caregiver for a wealthy woman in New York City while her son lives on the other side of the world; on his rare visits he doesn't seem happy to see her, only interested in finding out what she can buy for him. An illegal immigrant is afraid to go out in case he is carded, so he lives an empty life going only to work and home. Others get trapped in dead-end jobs because their employer keeps their paperwork inaccessible. These are the real tales of immigrants in the US, recorded by a talented new author.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars From S. Krishna's Books, January 11, 2009

By	skrishna (http://www.skrishnasbooks.com) - See all my reviews

One More Year: Stories by Sana Krasikov is a set of stories about Eastern Europeans. Most of the characters are living in the United States and trying to get by in this country that is so foreign to them. Each of the stories has a message; while I did have personal favorites, objectively speaking, they are all equally good. They are well-written and easy to read.

One thing that impressed me greatly about One More Year: Stories is the character development. Generally, I don't read short stories very often, unless they are by a favorite author or they are a trademark of the author (such as David Sedaris). One of the main aspects I enjoy about books is witnessing character development and watching characters grow before the reader's eyes. Short stories are too short to be able to have significant character development. However, somehow, Krasikov manages to pull it off. In each of her stories, the reader is immersed in the character; though we spend a very short time with each character, the reader gets to know him or her well and watches them grow. It's quite the feat for a debut author; I look forward to seeing what she can do with characters in a novel.

However, there is one thing I didn't like about One More Year: Stories: the lack of variation in the stories. Each of the stories is about betrayal, lies, not being appreciated, etc. By the end of the collection, I felt like each story was more of the same. I gave a short story collection a five star review not to long ago (In the Convent of Little Flowers by Indu Sundaresan [review]) and it was because each story was so different. All of the characters in the stories were Indian, yes, but some were in America, some were in India, some were old, some were young. Some of the stories ended happily, others were tragic; the point is that while the stories did have a common theme, they were each very different. I didn't get that sense with One More Year: Stories. The stories were simply too similar in nature.

I do look forward to seeing what Sana Krasikov does in the future. She's obviously a talented author with a lot of potential!