Growing up after World War I and the collapse of the empire, Rezzori lived in a twilit world suspended between the formalities of the old nineteenth-century order which had shaped his aristocratic parents, and the innovations, uncertainties, and raw terror of the new century. The haunted atmosphere of this dying world is beautifully rendered in the pages of The Snows of Yesteryear. The book is a series of portraits—amused, fond, sometimes appalling—of Rezzori’s family: his hysterical and histrionic mother, disappointed by marriage, destructively obsessed with her children’s health and breeding; his father, a flinty reactionary, whose only real love was hunting; his haughty older sister, fated to die before thirty; his earthy nursemaid, who introduced Rezzori to the power of storytelling and the inevitability of death; and a beloved governess, Bunchy. Telling their stories, Rezzori tells his own, holding his early life to the light like a crystal until it shines for us with a prismatic brilliance

    As a story, 30 years in the lives of the residents of an Odessa apartment building is both too much and too little: too much trivia, too many characters, and too much socialist realism; too little plot, too little focus, and too little connection with Western fictional conventions. As an example of modern contemporary Soviet mass fiction, it is fascinating, however. This is what the Soviets read; this is why Western fiction is so riveting there. This is the daring, modern Russian novel epic and formulaic that can tell us so much about the USSR. Not only does it give us typical Soviet style, plot, and character, it gives us a better understanding of the isolation of the arts and the constriction of the artist. Lvov's novel may put readers to sleep, but it will open their eyes.Ann Donovan, Central Washington Univ. Lib., Ellensburg

    -- A celebration of the ethnic groups that provide the United States and Canada with their rich and varied cultural heritages-- Narrates the history and culture of specific immigrant or native populations-- Generously illustrated with photographs, maps, and graphics

    Through her narrative she resurrects spectres that still haunt her life: her mother, who wandered into a river and never returned; her violent, domineering father; and the chaos of post-war Germany. Born in 1945 to Russian parents, she and her family had fled from the famine zone of the war-ravaged Ukraine and ended up in Germany. Always an outsider, the girl's perspective on the tyranny of society and of language, and on the adolescent's desperate need to belong is clear-eyed, moving and unspoiled by self-pity. As the post-war West German economic miracle gains momentum and the culture of America - 1950s nylon blouses and blue jeans - infiltrates her provincial town, her status as an alien becomes increasingly oppressive. A testament to the human ability to survive, Once I Lived is the story of a child's life moved by the forces of the twentieth century. It perfectly captures the essence of the outsider in a country that is becoming increasingly intolerant of aliens.