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"An exquisite portrait of mothers and daughters that reaches from Cold War Russia to modern-day New Jersey, from the author of A Mountain of Crumbs--the memoir that 'leaves you wanting more' (The Daily Telegraph, UK). In A Mountain of Crumbs Elena Gorokhova describes coming of age behind the Iron Curtain and leaving her mother and her Motherland for a new life in the United States. Now, in Russian Tattoo, Elena learns that the journey of an immigrant is filled with everyday mistakes, small humiliations, and a loss of dignity. Cultural disorientation comes in the form of not knowing how to eat a hamburger, buy a pair of shoes, or catch a bus. But through perseverance and resilience, Elena gradually adapts to her new country. With the simultaneous birth of her daughter and the arrival of her Soviet mother, who comes to the US to help care for her granddaughter and stays for twenty-four years, it becomes the story of a unique balancing act and a family struggle. Russian Tattoo is a poignant memoir of three generations of strong women with very different cultural values, all living under the same roof and battling for control. Themes of separation and loss, grief and struggle, and power and powerlessness run throughout this story of growing understanding and, finally, redemption. 'Gorokhova writes about her life with a novelist's gift,' says The New York Times, and her latest offering is filled with empathy, insight, and humor"--… (more)
User reviews
Every immigrant's path is same and different all at once. I can comment on the "sameness", having gone through that myself: what Elena Gorokhova describes is all very true. As for her individual circumstances - I have to admire her for ruthlessly baring her soul and exposing her own and her relatives' unvarnished weaknesses for the whole world to see. It's not an easy thing to do. For this, I give her so much credit that I am willing to overlook a few things that in the beginning of the book made me think she sounded a bit resentful and complaining, though that went away later on. Another thing, at times I felt like she was overreaching with the search for unusual, lyrical metaphors - not that most of them were not quite good, they were... But all that was minor, compared with the essence of her story.
In the end it's this: "Along with those who left their countries for other shores, I belong in neither land. We are unmoored and disconnected..." This memoir is a worthy sequel to Gorokova's debut novel "A Mountain of Crumbs".
This is not to paint the memoir as a negative book because the reader begins to see how she grows into being a Russian-American through her relationships and the satisfaction she gets from teaching English to fellow immigrants.
Russian Tattoo is a quick and charming read for anyone who wants to gain a greater understanding of the cultural negotiation that immigrants go through as Americans.
The most touching part of the book is Gorokhova's struggles trying to raise her daughter to be bilingual, and her feeling that she was not able to impart important parts of herself and her culture to her daughter.
Her descriptions of the differences between Soviet and US culture are vivid. Here she describes a visit to Russure with her husband, Andy.
"No one needs any pictures, though, to see the distance that divides us. All they need to do is glance at Andy, at is straight spine and unencumbered shoulders, at his Western look--which comes not from leather shoes or Levi's jeans but from the way he moves without apprehension, the way his eyes are not afraid to see into the future.