Leaving Katya (Hardcover)

by Paul Greenberg (Author) "The more I undressed her, the more foreign Katya seemed..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Roman Antonovich, Soviet Union (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
More memoir than fiction, this strangely affecting, frankly autobiographical debut novel is by a young New Yorker who worked during the mid-1990s as a TV consultant based in Moscow, traveling throughout the East teaching Bosnians, Serbs and Tajiks the rudiments of TV production. In 1991, Daniel, a student studying Russian in Leningrad (soon to be renamed St. Petersburg) is seduced by Katya, an aggressively ambitious Russian woman. Panicked by the uncertainty and upheaval after Gorbachev is deposed, Daniel flees to New York with a vague promise to see Katya again. He plans to live with his college dropout younger brother, Cam, and their paralegal mom in her liveryman's cottage in Connecticut, but upon arriving in New York, Daniel decides to sever the umbilical and takes up temporary residence with two female friends in shabby digs in Chinatown. Working for a temp agency, but unable to get Katya off his mind, Daniel eventually manages to phone her and invites her to New York. Safely inside the U.S., the scheming Katya manipulates ineffectual Daniel into marriage, setting in place the legal mechanism of permanent residence. But all is not wedded bliss as Katya seeks solace with fellow Russian expatriates in the outer boroughs and falls in with cult leader Sri Vishnu Brahmaputra. When she leaves for Utah to explore Mormonism, the passive-aggressive Daniel takes a job in Moscow. All these trips back and forth across the country and the Atlantic might have made the novel seem disjointed; instead, they convey the essence of a late-20th-century cross-cultural relationship, never quite on firm ground. This is a truly engaging first effort from a writer of promise. Agent, Jack Horner.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-A bittersweet love story set against the collapse of the Soviet Union. Daniel, a young American studying in Leningrad, sleeps with the enigmatic Katya and wonders if her cumbersome and poorly made underwear is "sexy or just Soviet?" He is, as his psychiatrist father phrases it, in his "Russian phase," and a stormy, awkward, and at times poignant relationship begins. He returns to the U.S., finds that his separation from Katya feeds his obsession, and invites her to visit him in New York. They find a small apartment, marry, and live on the proceeds of his temporary jobs. Poverty and "temporary" become the hallmarks of their lives. Searching for religion, she travels to Utah, and as she journeys deep into America, Daniel accepts a job that takes him to Russia, where his idealized views of both that country and Katya clash with the realities he faces. This debut novel offers insight into life's intimate and difficult relationships; communication and cultural differences contribute to the crumbling of Daniel and Katya's brief marriage, as do their unrealistic expectations of one another. Greenberg writes with clarity, compassion, and humor, and the recent history that forms a backdrop for this tale contributes to its relevance.
Susanne Bardelson, Arvada Public Library, CO
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 247 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; First Edition/First Printing edition (March 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399148353
• ISBN-13: 978-0399148354
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #912,326 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Russian: more of a diagnosis than a nationality", May 23, 2002

By A Customer

I must offer my congratulations to Paul Greenberg, who had a good material for a novel, and persevered through the years to complete its writing. The conception of a personal novel, "Leaving Katya", undoubtedly must have been a daunting task, a catharsis for the author, a fact willingly admitted by the author himself. That said, the novel is quite a surprise for a Slavic reader with American experiences like myself. The source of the surprise is that Paul Greenberg managed to nail quite a few essential barriers that divide the Russians from the Americans, or the Slavs from the Anglo-Saxons, as we may venture to say without a substantial loss of generality. At one point, late in the novel, the protagonist confesses that to take Russia out of him is as possible as changing his (weak) character. "Leaving Katya" is a story about two incompatible people who are thrust upon each other by the cruel hand of Fate. Thus begins the long-standing Daniel's infatuation with Mother Russia, aroused by his personal experiences with his newlywed Yekaterina Konstantinova, but not surprisingly, strengthened and firmly instituted or, to apply a better phrase, institutionalized by his numerous visits to the falling Soviet Union and then Russian Federation.

Short as this novel is, it merely skims portions of the surface of the complex relationship between Russian émigrés and America, American impressions of Russia, Russian impressions of America, and the idiosyncrasy of both lands. Nevertheless, since no deep analysis seems to have been the aim of the author, one cannot hold this fact against him and his novel. The modest goal of "Leaving Katya" is to provide a personal insight into the inevitable clash of cultures. The sparks must fly all around when a conscientious member of a nation with an over thousand years long history is faced with the melting, culture-less pot of America, and vice versa, the identity-less member of the blandly uncharacteristic American mass is faced with the strength of the Russian nationality and an enormous cultural and behavioral burden it necessarily carries with itself. The author bitterly notes the feeling of inadequacy he feels in such circumstances, broods over his jealousy and his inferiority complex. On the other hand, he never gives up, and despite the stone of awareness roped to his neck, he fights for what he considers his, for whom he considers his, Katya, as it were. I smiled to myself when initially Daniel mused in his daydreams; how grand it would be to join the cultures, to enrich the forthcoming generation with the wealth of cultural heritage from both lands, to only wake up with a hand in a night pot afterwards, when a realization dawns on him that it is simply not possible. With a cultural heritage as strong and as unique as Russian, you cannot count on any kind of its reconciliation with its antithesis, the American uniformized society consisting of disconnected individuals with no particular identity. Either one side melts into the other, or vice versa. Only when we allow one flower to die, the other may bloom. Such is the inescapable fate, this is the truth to be faced, one which cannot be avoided.

On the other hand, Greenberg makes a series of brilliant per-exemplum observations on how both lifestyles of the protagonists, for lack of a better word-and by extension, the cultures they come from-fail to preserve what is most crucial, necessary for the survival of the nation - the family, the bastion of identity. The sad difference is that the Eastern family was mangled and vandalized by the system, while the Western family just evaporated in a self-selective natural process of decay. "Leaving Katya", while a bit too brief and underdeveloped in some aspects, is brutally close to the truth when it comes to the analysis of the cultural differences. As such, it might be of interest for people who are fond of their critical outlook on their own society, whichever it might be, but also for people whose fate resembled Katya's or Daniel's to a smaller or larger extent. Like myself.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An insightful novel about love and cultural disconnect, May 2, 2002

By	Mollie (San Francisco Bay Area, USA) - See all my reviews

This is a slyly funny, moving and articulate book that will ring bells with anyone who has lived abroad in a land they don't quite understand or who has tried to be in a relationship with someone from a very different background. The main character in the book, Daniel (a 20-something recently out of college who is trying to form his career and his identity) hooks up with a Russian woman, Katya, and finds the foreigness right in his own bedroom.

The odd couple ends up getting married (is it love or convenience, or a mix of both?) and writer Paul Greenberg explores the resulting emotional tangle in a way that will make you fondly remember (or cringe over) your first really intense love affair. This book is a must-read.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The brightest colors, April 15, 2002

By	Anna Engelberg "katherinebaldwin" (New York, New York United States) - See all my reviews

Leaving Katya by Paul Greenberg is a very funny but sensitive account of a young man's first real adventure in love. The object of his affections happens to be from the Soviet Union/Russia which provides the perfect metaphor for the strangeness, the foreigness that can sometimes be both the raison d'etre and the bette noire of romance. No place feels more foreign to Daniel, the book's hero, or more compelling. There is something recognizable and strangely comforting about the Russia phase and the affair with Katya. As someone who lived in Russia for several years, I often felt I was living in a country whose history followed the trajectory a giant mood swing, where emotions were the brightest colors in a grey reality. Daniel struggles for the most part with himself , how to appreciate both what is recognizable and what is foreign in another person and isn't that what love is all about, after all? A wonderfully written, charming and brave account with an authentic feel for the culture and people of the Former Soviet Union.