It is truly artful to have a book that makes you laugh, reflect, and be emotional. This is so well done. I really enjoy books what family and finding your self within them.

This return-to-homeland story is both riveting and suspenseful. It's a literary wonder, a beautiful exploration of a country that Andrei knows but that he no longer knows. It's a novel of Putin's Russia and the complex lives of Andrei and Dima's family. It's a novel of exile and love--of how Andrei, who only planned to spend a few months in Moscow--instead finds a comfortable groove and life in the homeland. His feelings of belonging--to country, to family--are tested again and again, and politics also plays a big role. Gessen is a great storyteller and a gifted writer. I really loved this novel of longing and, indeed, hope.

This one depressed me more than it made me laugh. Overall interesting and introspective. But not necessarily a breezy beach read.

Slow-burning, and deeply felt treatment of the peril facing contemporary Russia, and those who would dare to challenge the source of that peril. Gessen almost too easily evokes the naivete of the American academic and one-time Russian national hoping that a sabbatical in the old country and some time spent with his grandmother will clear his head and provide him with the thesis he needs to publish, and not perish. But politics, the quotidian reality of life in a bullying regime, and the desperate grasping for "normalcy" that marks contemporary Russia prove toxic by story's end for the now not-so-naive American. He departs wiser, if only in this: his grandmother was right--it is a terrible country.

The layered critique of consumerist culture, the panacean myth of free markets producing free people--are well handled in their subtlety.

This book took me some time to get into and some time to finish, but I still really enjoyed it. It's all about family and relationships, and I love that.

I found this super interesting. While it is classified as fiction, it's more or less autobiographical for author Keith Gessen. The story takes places over roughly a years time. Andrei has to move back to his native Russia to care for his ailing grandmother while his brother Dima, fights off a criminal investigation from Russian authorities while hiding out in London. Andrei details the many differences between his American upbringing and his weird, nostalgic love for his home country. While he is Russian by birth, he tends to have very american ideals, steaming from his parents immigration to the US and his subsequent life there. However, after spending nearly a year living with his grandmother and navigating life in Moscow he comes to a sort of understanding with Russia.

It's kind of a love/hate codependent relationship. Andrei clearly loves Russia and his grandmother but also understands their many shortcomings. He must reconcile his love for them and his desire to get a teaching job and further his profile in Slavic studies. It was also interesting to note the turn towards socialism and communism Andrei took while trying to understand Russian politics. Seems a little timely considering our own countries turn of events lately.

Overall I enjoyed it. I thought it was an interesting story from an interesting point of view.

Published by Viking on July 10, 2018

The terrible country in the title of Keith Gessen’s novel is Russia. Terrible because of its political leaders, its oligarchs, and its economy, not because of its people, most of whom, like people everywhere in the world, are just trying to find a route to happiness, or at least survival. The novel is political in a personal way, but it also tells a moving family story that focuses on a young man’s conflict as he decides what to do about an elderly Russian grandmother who, while no longer capable of living alone, does not want to move from the apartment where she has lived for fifty years. Many of her memories are being lost to dementia, but the apartment is her anchor, where familiar streets and markets provide safety and comfort.

When his older brother Dima asks Andrei Kaplan to come to Moscow to stay with their grandmother, Andrei decides he has no reason to remain in New York, where he has lived since the age of six. He has a graduate degree in Russian literature but no real job. Dima has gone to London and needs Andrei to help their grandmother because she is experiencing the early stages of dementia. Andrei is hoping to find something sufficiently interesting and specialized that he can focus on in Russia to jumpstart his American academic career, something that might lead to a series of esoteric journal articles that would catch the attention of a hiring committee. His experiences eventually affect his professional life in ways he did not anticipate.

Andrei’s impression of Moscow in 2008 gives credence to the novel’s title. It is dingy, dilapidated, and dysfunctional, populated by people who are even ruder than New Yorkers. Goods are overpriced; residents are either wealthy swindlers who have mastered capitalism or their impoverished victims. Andrei’s life in Moscow is also terrible. His American girlfriend broke up with him, and he has no success with women in Russia until he meets a young idealist named Yulia. A thug beats him with a pistol, he can’t find a pickup hockey game that will allow him to play, he doesn’t like the people with whom he tries to make friends, he feels like he is failing his grandmother, and he hates the online teaching he’s doing to earn a meager living. On top of all that, Dima does not seem to have a clear plan to return to Russia to take over the burden of caring for their grandmother. Having created debt he cannot repay without selling the grandmother’s apartment, Dima might be in trouble if he does return.

The political aspects of the story illustrate the fundamental disagreements among intellectuals inside and outside of Russia. Liberal reformers focus on free speech and due process, both of which are jokes in a country ruled by an autocrat who has dissenters killed. Socialist reformers seek economic justice, but as it was last practiced in Russia, communism benefitted rulers, not the masses. A Terrible Country makes the point that ordinary Russians might be influenced to support nationalist appeals to view outsiders as the enemy, but for the most part regard debates about political reform as irrelevant to a country that never changes.

The story of Andrei’s grandmother is sad but universal. While Muscovites can adapt to the hardship of living in Russia, the hardship of living with dementia knows no boundaries. In other respects, the story is intellectually intriguing rather than emotionally gripping. Gessen creates Andrei in detail, giving him the kind of complexity and inner turmoil that makes a character believable, but he is drifting through life and can’t seem to seize opportunities for personal growth. It is only his dedication to his grandmother that makes him sympathetic.

Andrei’s love story with Yulia is wrapped up in the larger political story, and they are such strange bedfellows that it is difficult to believe they will stay together — which makes it difficult to care whether they do or don’t. Even if A Terrible Country doesn’t resonate on an emotional level, Gessen’s strong prose style conveys a convincing sense of Moscow in the Putin era while encouraging readers to think about how meaningless labels like “communism” and “capitalism” are when applied to a nation ruled by autocrats and thieves.

RECOMMENDED

Thank You to Viking for providing me with a copy of Keith Gessen’s novel, A Terrible Country, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- Andrei immigrated from Russia to the United States as a child and now in his early thirties, is a Russian Scholar. He’s struggling to find steady employment and to make his mark in academia, so when his brother calls on him to return to Moscow to care for their elderly grandmother, Andrei decides to go. Beyond caring for a grandmother whom he loves, he hopes that being in Russia will revive his career. Andrei is not prepared for the culture shock that he will encounter in his homeland. It teaches him that being born in a place and learning about it in books, is not the same as day-to-day living.

LIKE- Initially, I was drawn to Gessen’s novel by theme of caregiving. Like Andrei, I’ve been in the position of being caregiver and I could relate to both his frustrations and the joy from this precious time spent with a loved one. Andrei’s relationship with his grandmother, Baba Seva, is one of pure love and devotion. He gives her his all, even when he is struggling financially or is feeling doubtful about his own future. The best parts of A Terrible Country are the scenes between Andrei and Baba Seva. She has dementia and her confusion is heartbreaking.

I’m fairly familiar with famous Russian literature, but I don’t have a wide understanding of Russian history or what a modern Russia looks like. Gessen’s novel gave me a glimpse into Russia: the daily life in a major city and the culture. The title of the book is a refrain through-out the story, even Baba Seva tells Andrei that Russia is “A Terrible Country” urging him to leave, as she refuses to do so herself. This sentiment is multi-faceted. In the most simplistic sense, it is terrible because of the wealth disparity, the crime, and corruption. Andrei realizes that he has had it very easy in America. On the flip-side, this is the place of his birth, the place where he still has family. He feels a strong pull towards Russia. Andrei also manages to make friends during his year in Russia, including a girlfriend. He comes to see the beauty beyond the frustrations and he embraces Russia; warts and all. Russia is no longer a memory from his childhood or a mythology patched together from text books, but a place that is part of his soul. He has developed a strong bond with this terrible country.

DISLIKE- A Terrible Country was uneven in keeping my interest. It took me several weeks to read. I suspect this was due to the heavy themes and slice-of-life style, but I kept reading it in spurts, a few chapters at a time and setting it aside in favor of other books. It wasn’t that I was disinterested, I just found the story world to be a place that I didn’t want remain for an extended stay.

RECOMMEND- Yes. Gessen is a talented writer and A Terrible Country is great for readers who want a deeper look at modern day Russia. It compels me to seek out non-fiction books on the subject.

I was planning pretty solidly to rate this book as three stars--but I realized toward the end of the book how much I'd learned about Russia, current and past events, and varying political groups, and I realized how unique this book was in comparison to many books out on the market, and that it indeed warranted a four-star review.

Gessen's novel heartbreaking at times--especially at the end. So much of how I view Russia and Russian history is through the lens of tragic heroes and heroines, glimpses of bright futures, and bleak outcomes, and this novel gives a modern-day characters to rally around.

Having had two grandmothers who's memories were claimed by dementia, this book hit home for me as well.

This book gave me a lot to think about.

I received this book as an advanced review copy from NetGalley. My thoughts and opinions are my own.

Emily Gould's husband wrote a book. I like Emily, and I read a couple of article Gessen wrote and didn't hate them, so I figured I'd give his book a try.
Unfortunately, I gave up about a third of the way in. The main character is a very, very thinly-veiled version of Gessen himself; it felt as though Gessen had just done a search-and-replace on his personal journals just enough to make it a work of fiction.

Andrei Kaplan is coming off of a failed relationship, low on cash and struggling to find an academic job when his brother asks him to do a favor. Kaplan accepts and heads to Russia where he will take care of his ailing grandmother in her Stalin-era, Moscow apartment.

From the start Kaplan finds it difficult to navigate Vladimir Putin's Russia, where prices are rising and even meager entertainments are out of the reach of his limited budget. But he dutifully looks out for his grandmother and sets out to find fellowship, first on the hockey rink and later among a group of revolutionary leftists who test his beliefs.

Keith Gessen's A Terrible Country (Digital galley, Viking) is a compassionate story that centers on the relationship of Kaplan and his grandmother, who is suffering from dementia. At times humorous, the novel offers a peek at the competing forces building a new Russia and humanizes the characters who inhabit modern Moscow.

Well written story of a complex time as told by a rather naive protagonist in a fully immersive setting.

I received an advanced eGalley of "A Terrible Country", by Keith Gessen, via NetGalley. Thank you to both.

Andrei is in a rut. His degree in Russian Literature hasn't netted him the academic career he wants, his girlfriend recently broke up with him, and he's sulking the days away following the accomplishments of others in his field, on Facebook.

So, when his older brother Dima asks him to return to Russia to care for their ailing grandmother, he agrees because he figures what else have I got to lose?

He packs up what little belongings he has, sublets his apartment, and spends what's left of his savings on a passport, and a ticket to Moscow. He hopes to parlay his time there into something which will look attractive to a university in America, so that he'll be infinitely more employable upon his return, particularly in a field that is (at that point in time) seemingly dying.

However, once Andrei arrives in Moscow, he finds things aren't as easy as he'd imagined. Life is hard, and the biting cold makes it harder.

His grandmother remembers him but she's depressed and lonely. And he can't seem to connect with anyone because they don't know what to think of him, and he's not sure they would like him much if they could because, after all, as an American, he's an outsider.

A chance meeting, at an academic dinner, brings Yulia (a passionate revolutionary) into his life, and from there he begins to find his footing--and a group of people with whom he can relate and have fun --but this is a "terrible country", so nothing good is ever meant to last.

This book has plenty of interesting tidbits about the way Russia was beginning to evolve under the leadership (or tandemocracy) of Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin (who served as Medvedev's Prime Minister) at the time, and how the rise of "the haves" began to effect the livelihood (what little there was) of the "have nots".

The social order was in question and the citizens of Russia were passionately connected to one ideology or another. References to communism and socialism are often spoken of throughout this book because it has a huge bearing on the lives of every single person within.

Not unlike the states, Russia was going through a gentrification of sorts, at that time. That made for a lot of broken ideas about what type of rule best suits a country of poor (yet proud) people. Andrei arrives with all the knowledge of an academician, but quickly finds that books don't speak of reality, and it makes for an even tougher indoctrination into a culture that is already unforgiving.

At times I was riveted, but during others I felt like I was following a "Seinfeld" episode; there is a good bit of mundanity in this story as well (ex. an entire chapter is focused on finding a pair of slippers).

While such tangents offered a bit of comic relief, and shone an even brighter light on how much the political enveloped every part of the Russian day-to-day, I could've done without it.

There are a lot of wonderful bit characters. Sergei, Nikolai, Yulia, "the soldiers" in the apartment next to Andrei's grandmother, Dima, and Seva (Andrei's 89-year old grandmother). All add something to the reading experience, as well as to Andrei's evolution from an unfocused, disillusioned, academician to a more pragmatic individual.

The book comes to its end rather abruptly, and ties up a lot of loose ends in what seems an incongruous way--based on how much detail was used on lesser things (i.e. the slippers)--but it was an otherwise decent read.

All I could think was, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Returning to Moscow in 2008 is a cultural shock to Andrei, who emigrated to the US as a kid. This reads more a memoir than a novel (and in fact is based on Gessen's own experiences), and it's helpful to read it from that perspective going in. It's also quite introspective for Andrei, who has left Brooklyn (of course) with all his issues, in order to care for his grandmother, who is fading rapidly. He does meet people but spends as much time- sorry Gessen- whining as anything else. I'm curious how he would see things if he spend the same amount of time in Moscow today, ten years later. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC.

This review is based on an ARC of A Terrible Country which I received courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher (Viking).

I can't say that I have ever read anything like this book (in a good way)! A Terrible Country is about a post-grad student who is struggling with finding his career niche when, given the opportunity, he moves back to his birth country of Russia to care for his grandmother. This novel reads like a memoir, and not knowing any better I would even assume that it was one.

The prose is my favorite part of this book. Gessen writes very pragmatically and fleshes out details to the highest amount without overwriting. At first, I was worried that the narration wouldn't hold steady for the length of the novel, but it did--at least up until the very end. I felt that the finale was a little bit abrupt. What with all the detail that went into every other aspect of this story, the outcome of things for the grandmother (a major character in this book) could have been drawn out just a tad bit longer, in my opinion, to do justice to her character.

Now, though I liked the writing, at times I felt a little bogged down with political discussion. I'm just not a very political person, so I found myself skimming over these parts. From around the middle of the book and onward the story seemed to get a little repetitive and uneventful.

As for the characters... I really liked the development of Andrei, the main character. At first, he was a bit of an asshole, but I think once he started finding himself and his place in life, his character became more bearable. The relationship with Yulia I did not really understand; I just didn't feel the supposed connection between the two. I really adored Grandma Seva and her story. All the other characters I did not really care enough about to take note of. Overall, the minor characters were mostly forgettable.

A Terrible Country is a quaint little story, but though I enjoyed it, it could have been better.

For the first quarter of the book, I thought is was completely auto-biographical. It was only after I looked for a picture of the main character that I realized it was a novel. It reads that true to life. I am sure my enjoyment of the book directly related to the fact that I have traveled in Russia with Russians.

It is a family story but a different kind because of the setting and culture. I continued to think about the main character and his seemingly impossible situation long after I finished it.

Andrei Kaplan, a perpetual student of Russian literature, succumbs to his brother pleas to return to Moscow for a short time to take care of their grandmother and help him settle some real estate issues. Andrei, becomes Andryush, an affectionate name given to him by his grandmother, Seva Efraimovna. Seva's expertise in Russian literature allows for lively conversations with Andryush, in addition to playing anagrams where Seva always beat Andrew. Eva taught Andrei Pushkin.

Andrew, still working at a university in NYC, taught 3-4 sections of online students in the MOOC program (Massive Open Online Courses offered by top schools to anyone who wanted to participate online). Andrew had barely enough to live on but gingerly went about trying to find the Russia he left when he was a child when he moved to Boston with his family. Just traversing the widely spaced open streets of Moscow was a huge challenge and it took Andrew a good enough amount of time to find people to socialize with and to play hockey with, his great love. He had trouble finding Wi-Fi, but coincidentally he stumbled on a place across from the KGB building, called The Grind and he spent time there working on communication with his students and reading their work.

Everyone Andrew came across was worried about the USA financial collapse and if electing Barack Obama was the right thing to do in those perilous times. With some like-minded students and his hockey friends, Andrew created a life that seemed to work. He never had any money and finding food for him, and his grandmother was always foremost on his mind, along with a young woman named Yulia who Andrew developed a lovely relationship. He fell in love.

After a year in Mosco and many adventures, Andrew begins to think clearly about where Putin is going with his power plays and that leaves Andrei with some big decisions to make. This brilliant novel gave me an excellent look into a world I would like to know better.

Thank you, NetGalley, and Viking for allowing me to read this advance galley.

Publish date is July 10th 2018.

Andrei emigrated with his parents from Russia at the age of six. Now, he's 33 and returning to Moscow to take care of his 89 year old grandmother, who’s suffering from some dementia. And who’s lonely because all her friends are dead. The book takes you to 2008 Moscow. You feel like you there and Geisel does a good job of making you feel the time and place. I did feel I got a better understanding of Russian “capitalism”.

This is a grim book. And slow moving. Flashes of brilliance, like when it discusses what the switch from communism to capitalism has met for the average person or how those folks manage to live in Moscow with little money. Then, long dry patches when it was all I could do to keep reading. The ending shows how little Andrei still understands Russia, despite living there for a year.

The relationship between Andrei and his grandmother is done well, beautifully articulating the slow descent of someone into dementia.

So, I’m torn with how to rate this book. Settling on a three star, which doesn’t really reflect the love/hate relationship I had with this book.

My thanks to netgalley and Viking for an advance copy of this book.

The description of the book is very accurate. I really enjoyed the interactions between Andrei and his grandmother. Andrei’s, sometimes I think, unrealized reactions to his grandmother’s life and her up front and straight opinion on subjects was well done and intriguing. The subplot of hockey and college life of the teaching staff made the story well rounded and even more enjoyable. The view of what life is like for the average citizen of Russia, gave the reader some great insight into the culture of the country.

If the notes from the editor weren't included in the ARC, the book may have been a bit more pleasant to read. The notes were distracting because I'd find myself questioning the responses, wondering about the page numbers, the accuracy of the wording.

To some degree, the book felt more like a memoir than a novel, and that may have been because of the tacked on epilogue. I enjoyed the grandmother and narrator's engagement the most. Some of the supposedly thrilling episodes felt flat and forced, until the end when (I don't want to give away spoiler alerts) when the narrator questions his role in what happened to his friends. Overall, the book was somewhat engaging and amusing.