Wild East: Stories From the Last Frontier [Hardcover]

Boris Fishman (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 9, 2003

This book is a lusty and raucous anthology of stories about bohemians, danger junkies, and thrillseekers reveling in the cultural, social, political and sexual renaissance that followed the fall of the iron curtain.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The former Soviet bloc countries are the source of a recent surge of literary talent, which is ably harnessed in this collection of 12 impressive, penetrating stories. Fishman, a Belarus native and New Yorker staffer, has selected stories of uniformly excellent quality, paying testament to the rich fictional reserves of countries where residents "sigh in appreciation for what was lost and what remained." The authors represented include natives of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union writing in English (Gary Shteyngart, Aleksandar Hemon) or appearing in translation (Miljenko Jergovic, Vladimir Sorokin) and Westerners with an abiding interest in the region (Arthur Phillips, Paul Greenberg). Although the pieces differ greatly, some common themes emerge, among them corruption, foreign identity and drinking-lots of it. Some of the pieces, like Sorokin's "Hiroshima," venture into the absurd; all, however, are steeped in a gritty realism, giving the impression that they are not fiction but real accounts dealing with actual lives. Tom Bissell's "The Ambassador's Son" presents a striking portrait of an elite American living in "one of the Central Asian republics you've never heard of," living a wild life and managing to avoid paying the consequences. Similarly, "Gika" by Wendell Steavenson explores the sharp contrasts that exist in so many post-Communist countries, juxtaposing the lives of a beggar boy in Georgia, who goes barefoot when he begs to elicit more sympathy, and a moneyed narrator. Set everywhere from Russia to the Balkans, these stories transcend their locales, capturing the charged, chaotic aftermath of social and political breakdown.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From The New Yorker

This timely anthology delivers on the promise of its title with rowdy, vodka-soaked tales of people run amok in the ruins of the Soviet empire. The writers—both natives of the Eastern bloc and Western travellers—plumb the cynicism and the hopes of places where a straitlaced missionary may quickly end up in "three fistfights, two of them with children," and a melancholy financier dodges assassins between snorts of cocaine. Vodka is ubiquitous, and one story, a Gogolesque fable, involves a small-town mayor transformed into a vodka bottle that gradually makes the rounds of his corrupt advisers. These stories and reports cut very fine the distinction between black humor and despair; like the young Ukrainian American who journeys to Kiev to find himself, you are left captivated by the hardship and the fervor, "the musty smell of a lived life."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Justin, Charles & Co.; 1ST edition (September 9, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932112154
• ISBN-13: 978-1932112153
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,547,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great collection -- worth the price of admission!, October 14, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Wild East: Stories From the Last Frontier (Hardcover)

It seemed like only yesterday that the Berlin Wall went down. In the intervening fourteen years, everything seems to have changed for the people of Eastern Europe -- for better and for worse. They call the former communist countries the "Wild wild east," and as the stories in this terrific new anthology show, the FSU shares more than a passing resemblance to our own Wild West of the 19th century. Stories by Gary Shteyngart and Paul Greenberg alone are worth the price of admission. Bravo!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars greetings from the vodka belt, December 16, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Wild East: Stories From the Last Frontier (Hardcover)

This is a smart and funny collection of short fiction. I especially liked Arthur Phillips's story "Wenceslaus Square," which reads like postmodern John Le Carre. The story by Tom Bissell, about the reprobate son of a career diplomat posted to the ass-end of the world is hilarious, then turns very dark. And John Beckman's "Babylon Revisited Redux," in addition to the nod to Fitzgerald in the title, made me remember why spoofing Dan Quayle was so much fun. And Gary Shteyngart's "Shylock on the Neva," which was originally in The New Yorker, strikes me as a nuanced slice of life in Russia today. Excellent.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wild East, indeed..., October 27, 2003

By 

Michael Lindgren (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wild East: Stories From the Last Frontier (Hardcover)

Wild East collects an even dozen stories that take as their subject matter the chaos of life in the post-Soviet, post-Berlin Wall east. The stories range from Bulgakov-like surrealist fables to visions of apocalyptic meltdown, with a good deal of vividly- described dissolute behavior by the inhabitants of these curious demimondes. Tough, scary, and funny, and an early taste of what may well be the next literary hotbed.