NAMED BY THE NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION AS A 5 UNDER 35 AUTHOR
Vaclav and Lena seem destined for each other. They meet as children in an ESL class in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Vaclav is precocious and verbal. Lena, struggling with English, takes comfort in the safety of his adoration, his noisy, loving home, and the care of Rasia, his big-hearted mother. Vaclav imagines their story unfolding like a fairy tale, or the perfect illusion from his treasured Magician’s Almanac, but among the many truths to be discovered in Haley Tanner’s wondrous debut is that happily ever after is never a foregone conclusion.
One day, Lena does not show up for school. She has disappeared from Vaclav and his family’s lives as if by a cruel magic trick. For the next seven years, Vaclav says goodnight to Lena without fail, wondering if she is doing the same somewhere. On the eve of Lena’s seventeenth birthday he finds out.
Haley Tanner has the originality and verve of a born storyteller, and the boldness to imagine a world in which love can overcome the most difficult circumstances. In Vaclav & Lena she has created two unforgettable young protagonists who evoke the joy, the confusion, and the passion of having a profound, everlasting connection with someone else.
Praise for Vaclav & Lena
“Wonderful and wrenching . . . Vibrant characters, believable romance and dark undertones make for a moving tale.”—The New York Times
“From the moment they meet, Vaclav and Lena make magic together. . . . Through all the twists and turns of the book, the most enduring theme of the novel is love.”—NPR
“Haley Tanner’s assured narrative voice finds new ways to describe emotion and character, stunning the reader again and again with small shocks of awareness. This book is sad, funny, true, and shot through with grace.”—Judy Blundell, National Book Award–winning author of What I Saw and How I Lied
“Highly recommended . . . Tanner’s captivating debut novel is a love story of unusual innocence and intensity [and] a suspenseful, literary work that is hard to put down.”—Library Journal
“A debut to savor . . . Tanner’s charming story unfolds as gracefully as a flower.”—People
“The magic Tanner makes is as dazzling as it is profound.”—Booklist
Vaclav & Lena: A Novel
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Wonderful and wrenching . . . Vibrant characters, believable romance and dark undertones make for a moving tale.”—The New York Times
“From the moment they meet, Vaclav and Lena make magic together. . . . Through all the twists and turns of the book, the most enduring theme of the novel is love.”—NPR
“Haley Tanner’s assured narrative voice finds new ways to describe emotion and character, stunning the reader again and again with small shocks of awareness. This book is sad, funny, true, and shot through with grace.”—Judy Blundell, National Book Award–winning author ofWhat I Saw and How I Lied
“Highly recommended . . . Tanner’s captivating debut novel is a love story of unusual innocence and intensity [and] a suspenseful, literary work that is hard to put down.”—Library Journal
“A debut to savor . . . Tanner’s charming story unfolds as gracefully as a flower.”—People
“The magic Tanner makes is as dazzling as it is profound.”—Booklist
“From the moment they meet, Vaclav and Lena make magic together. . . . Through all the twists and turns of the book, the most enduring theme of the novel is love.”—NPR
“Haley Tanner’s assured narrative voice finds new ways to describe emotion and character, stunning the reader again and again with small shocks of awareness. This book is sad, funny, true, and shot through with grace.”—Judy Blundell, National Book Award–winning author ofWhat I Saw and How I Lied
“Highly recommended . . . Tanner’s captivating debut novel is a love story of unusual innocence and intensity [and] a suspenseful, literary work that is hard to put down.”—Library Journal
“A debut to savor . . . Tanner’s charming story unfolds as gracefully as a flower.”—People
“The magic Tanner makes is as dazzling as it is profound.”—Booklist
About the Author
Haley Tanner was born in 1982 in New York. She holds an MFA from the New School and a BA from Clark University. She lives in Brooklyn with her two dogs. This is her first novel.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Vaclav & Lena is set in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Both characters are Russian émigrés - children 10 and 9 years old. Vaclav has a fair grasp of the English language but is keen to master it. His mother Rasia is loving and kind, determined to make a better life for her son. Lena's life is much different - she has no support at the place she calls home, often has nothing to eat, does poorly in school and tries to blend into the woodwork in an effort to hide. Rasia does her best to mother her as well.
Vaclav and Lena share a love of magic and dream of the day when Vaclav will be a famous magician and Lena will be his stunning assistant. When Lena disappears from his life under never discussed circumstances, Vaclav is heartbroken. Until the day seven years later when their paths cross again....
Vaclav is such an earnest, eager, spirited child. He sees the positive in everything around him. He dreams of the future. The barriers placed in his way do not stop him or deter him. This character touched me so much and literally brought tears to my eyes.
"Rasia looks at Vaclav, holding these dollar bills, smiling his goofy smile. Most people do not really mean their smiles, most of the time. For most people, their smiles are a lie, a trick, or a promise. Vaclav's smile is just a smile, and he always means it."
Two years ago I worked in a very small library. Every day we were open, a young boy, his sister, mother and baby brother came in after school. They were recent immigrants from an Eastern bloc country. The oldest boy had attended school in his home country, his language carried an accent and mangled syntax, he was awkward socially, but tried so hard to fit in. It broke my heart to see him rebuffed by the other children. I can only imagine what his mother felt. She and her husband had chosen to seek a better life for their children.
Rasia's love for Vaclav...
"As she watched him walk out into the big American crowd, under the big American roller coaster, she felt the world spinning wildly away from her, and she sat and cried because she was happy and sad that he did not look back, because of how much she loved his little body, and his awkward, cowlicky head and that tiny rib cage, and the way that he knew, already, to take a girl's hand if she was afraid."
Tanner has perfectly captured what I observed. The dialogue, feelings, emotions, situations and settings all evoke and capture the experience of a new citizen from a child's and parent's view.
But there is much more to the story - it is a tale of tenacity, love and hope. Vaclav & Lena is a rich, poignant narrative that will capture you from first page to last. Loved it! I look forward to reading what Tanner writes next.
Vaclav and Lena share a love of magic and dream of the day when Vaclav will be a famous magician and Lena will be his stunning assistant. When Lena disappears from his life under never discussed circumstances, Vaclav is heartbroken. Until the day seven years later when their paths cross again....
Vaclav is such an earnest, eager, spirited child. He sees the positive in everything around him. He dreams of the future. The barriers placed in his way do not stop him or deter him. This character touched me so much and literally brought tears to my eyes.
"Rasia looks at Vaclav, holding these dollar bills, smiling his goofy smile. Most people do not really mean their smiles, most of the time. For most people, their smiles are a lie, a trick, or a promise. Vaclav's smile is just a smile, and he always means it."
Two years ago I worked in a very small library. Every day we were open, a young boy, his sister, mother and baby brother came in after school. They were recent immigrants from an Eastern bloc country. The oldest boy had attended school in his home country, his language carried an accent and mangled syntax, he was awkward socially, but tried so hard to fit in. It broke my heart to see him rebuffed by the other children. I can only imagine what his mother felt. She and her husband had chosen to seek a better life for their children.
Rasia's love for Vaclav...
"As she watched him walk out into the big American crowd, under the big American roller coaster, she felt the world spinning wildly away from her, and she sat and cried because she was happy and sad that he did not look back, because of how much she loved his little body, and his awkward, cowlicky head and that tiny rib cage, and the way that he knew, already, to take a girl's hand if she was afraid."
Tanner has perfectly captured what I observed. The dialogue, feelings, emotions, situations and settings all evoke and capture the experience of a new citizen from a child's and parent's view.
But there is much more to the story - it is a tale of tenacity, love and hope. Vaclav & Lena is a rich, poignant narrative that will capture you from first page to last. Loved it! I look forward to reading what Tanner writes next.
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
By SFreader
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I was kind of looking forward to reading this book after coming across a magazine review but ended up being less than impressed. The plot is fairly simple and very predictable. However, my much bigger issue is with the whole Russianness of the books.
With the two exceptions (Vaclav and the social worker, Anna), every Russian character is presented negatively in one way or the other, be it the physical ugliness or the moral one. Usually it's both. In fact, majority of the Russian characters are just plain sociopaths (the "grandmother", the actual grandmother, the two elderly neighbors - the list goes on and on). Everything that's Russian in the book (be it the appearance of a house, smell of food, the country itself) is ugly, disgusting, etc. A more balanced look would give more credibility to the author's knowledge of the subject.
Secondly, based on the way the author described life in Russia, I assumed that the story takes place in the middle of the last century, not the 1990s. And all these clichés... Prostitutes - check, alcoholic - check, tea drinking - check. Oy.
Finally, there are these seemingly minor comments and statements throughout the book that, as one who is probably more intimately familiar with the Russian immigrant community than the author, I just couldn't swallow:
- There is no way in hell you would find Wonder bread and peanut butter in a typical Russian immigrants' kitchen.
- In my 15+ years here I have yet to meet a family that would ban Russian language at home. Based on my personal experience, which among other things includes knowing several dozens Russian families in the US, it is quite the opposite. People go out of their way to preserve the native language and to make sure their kids can still speak it, as it is so easy to lose this battle once kids start going to school. As a side note - let's assume for a moment that a family would indeed ban the native language at home and be content with living a daily life of very primitive conversations in poor, broken English. Why would then Russian TV constantly be on, as it is in this book?
- I had to laugh at the statement of Vaclav's family ending up in Brooklyn by "luck". Had the author chosen, say, El Paso, TX, luck would have made some sense. Brooklyn houses a very prominent Russian community. It is almost shocking when new immigrants DON'T make it their first stop in the US.
That being said, I thought the author's ability to convey her characters' inner worlds was wonderful. There are many beautiful paragraphs that touched me, made me feel the characters' pain, anguish, pride, love... I will definitely check out her next book, hopefully its plot will match the characters' depth.
With the two exceptions (Vaclav and the social worker, Anna), every Russian character is presented negatively in one way or the other, be it the physical ugliness or the moral one. Usually it's both. In fact, majority of the Russian characters are just plain sociopaths (the "grandmother", the actual grandmother, the two elderly neighbors - the list goes on and on). Everything that's Russian in the book (be it the appearance of a house, smell of food, the country itself) is ugly, disgusting, etc. A more balanced look would give more credibility to the author's knowledge of the subject.
Secondly, based on the way the author described life in Russia, I assumed that the story takes place in the middle of the last century, not the 1990s. And all these clichés... Prostitutes - check, alcoholic - check, tea drinking - check. Oy.
Finally, there are these seemingly minor comments and statements throughout the book that, as one who is probably more intimately familiar with the Russian immigrant community than the author, I just couldn't swallow:
- There is no way in hell you would find Wonder bread and peanut butter in a typical Russian immigrants' kitchen.
- In my 15+ years here I have yet to meet a family that would ban Russian language at home. Based on my personal experience, which among other things includes knowing several dozens Russian families in the US, it is quite the opposite. People go out of their way to preserve the native language and to make sure their kids can still speak it, as it is so easy to lose this battle once kids start going to school. As a side note - let's assume for a moment that a family would indeed ban the native language at home and be content with living a daily life of very primitive conversations in poor, broken English. Why would then Russian TV constantly be on, as it is in this book?
- I had to laugh at the statement of Vaclav's family ending up in Brooklyn by "luck". Had the author chosen, say, El Paso, TX, luck would have made some sense. Brooklyn houses a very prominent Russian community. It is almost shocking when new immigrants DON'T make it their first stop in the US.
That being said, I thought the author's ability to convey her characters' inner worlds was wonderful. There are many beautiful paragraphs that touched me, made me feel the characters' pain, anguish, pride, love... I will definitely check out her next book, hopefully its plot will match the characters' depth.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By MurphysLaw58
Format:Hardcover
I am afraid to say that "Vaclav and Lena" is a coming-of-age story for fear that will turn people off, because this book is anything but cliché. Vaclav and Lena are Russian-Americans in modern-day New York. The story is told from the viewpoints of Vaclav, Lena and Vaclav's mother, Rasia, but mostly we live in Vaclav's world. At ten, he is a budding magician, and his life revolves around developing his magic show. Lena is his beautiful assistant, and they spend hours together planning and making lists. Rasia struggles to be a good "American" parent to Vaclav. They share the struggles that immigrants and first-generation American's face. Vaclav and Lena meet in ESL classes and sit with the other "smelly lunch" children. Vaclav's father revisits Russia every night on satellite TV.
I was charmed by young Vaclav and his dreams. I was charmed by his love for Lena and Rasia. I was charmed by his naiveté. I wanted to be Vaclav's friend.
The style of the book is spot on. Between the narrative and action, we listen to the characters think out loud, and Tanner's prose mimics the mental tug-of-war that we all experience. The tussle between what we believe and what is real. The seesaw of she-loves-me-she-loves-me-not. The quandary between right and good.
As the minds of Vaclav, Lena and Rasia race to the conclusion, so does the reader. This is one of those books that grabs hold and doesn't let go. I sacrificed sleep to be able to finish it and was not disappointed. The book is not so much about uncovering secrets as finding out how everyone will respond when the secrets are out.
I am a sucker for a debut novel, and this is Tanner's first. It made me nostalgic for Irving's "Setting Free the Bears." Some people might have difficulty with the simplicity of the language or the first-generation English of the characters, but I think that was part of the appeal.
I was charmed by young Vaclav and his dreams. I was charmed by his love for Lena and Rasia. I was charmed by his naiveté. I wanted to be Vaclav's friend.
The style of the book is spot on. Between the narrative and action, we listen to the characters think out loud, and Tanner's prose mimics the mental tug-of-war that we all experience. The tussle between what we believe and what is real. The seesaw of she-loves-me-she-loves-me-not. The quandary between right and good.
As the minds of Vaclav, Lena and Rasia race to the conclusion, so does the reader. This is one of those books that grabs hold and doesn't let go. I sacrificed sleep to be able to finish it and was not disappointed. The book is not so much about uncovering secrets as finding out how everyone will respond when the secrets are out.
I am a sucker for a debut novel, and this is Tanner's first. It made me nostalgic for Irving's "Setting Free the Bears." Some people might have difficulty with the simplicity of the language or the first-generation English of the characters, but I think that was part of the appeal.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
very different story from what I expected
The characters of imigrants were well developed. It expressed well how parents and children don't communicate.The life that Lena had was very sad. Liked the ending of the story.
Published 19 days ago by bertha m izzo
5.0 out of 5 stars
Vacaville &Lena
Very engaging. A very interesting story, well written, The characters are multidimensional. This is a wonderful look I to the minds of young and old immigrants as they try to... Read more
Published 26 days ago by judithwyckoff
5.0 out of 5 stars
Moving and interesting story with a great ending
Immigrant story, teen angst story, child welfare story, substance abuse story. It manages to treat these difficult topics without getting too gloomy or too flip.
Published 1 month ago by P. Brooks
5.0 out of 5 stars
Loved it!
This is a great story, very hard to put down. My heart broke for Lena....I would love a sequel. I have recommended this to a variety of friends and family and everyone has loved... Read more
Published 2 months ago by jahs
4.0 out of 5 stars
Absorbing
About half way through, I found myself totally engrossed in this book. Vaclav and Lena are believable as ten year olds and later as young adults. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Katherine Mccaughan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truly sweet book!
This book has it all. While it is about the experience of an immigrant in Brooklyn, it explores a magical relationship between a male and a female. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Tracy from New York
5.0 out of 5 stars
Adorable book
Very cute book with a great story line. The characters were interesting and the ending will surprise you. It's pretty short.
Published 4 months ago by Anna Polucha
4.0 out of 5 stars
Of 14 people in our bookclub 10 rated it a 4
It was a good read, nice story but not worthy of being a classic. Author had the psychology right, particularly of Lena.
Published 4 months ago by Lorraine Branson
4.0 out of 5 stars
Vaclav and Lena
a very touching, sweet believable fairy tale. I found it to be a very charming novel, and I would highly recommend it.
Published 5 months ago by Melvyn Glenn
3.0 out of 5 stars
Vaclav and Lena
Vaclav & Lena
A bit simplistic. Not as involving as I'd hoped. I didn't feel much interest
in the two young people past the first few pages.
A bit simplistic. Not as involving as I'd hoped. I didn't feel much interest
in the two young people past the first few pages.
Published 5 months ago by Antoinette Constable
