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inthestacks
Apr 04, 2013inthestacks rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
The story of a family of Latvian Jews who have left the Soviet Union and are living in Rome temporarily as they await approval to immigrate to the West. Bezmozgis assumes a lot of prior knowledge about this forgotten episode in history. The novel is set in 1978, and during the 1970s, many Jews were trying to leave the Soviet Union for Israel, the United States, Canada and other western nations because of state-sponsored restrictions and persecutions. However, the Soviets were making it difficult for them to leave, further persecuting them for the applying to emigrate, dismissing them from their jobs, trying them on fallacious charges and sending them to the Gulag. The plight of the Soviet Jews became an international movement and no more so than in the United States where American Jews organized and petitioned politicians to put pressure on the Soviet government and allow Jews to leave the USSR. Bezmozgis does not provide this context to his novel. He peppers his story with the names of noted Zionists and other historical figures and events that many readers would not be familiar with. However, that said, this is still an intelligent immigration story, one family’s experience of having left everything they know for a future they have little certainty about.