Castle of Concrete: A NOVEL
by Katia Raina (Author)
Booktalk: In the final year of Soviet Russia’s collapse, Sonya, a timid Jewish girl, reunites with her once-dissident mother and falls in love with a mysterious boy who may be an anti-Semite. All the while, Sonya’s mama is falling in love also–with shiny America, a land where differences seem to be celebrated. The place sounds amazing, but so far away. Will Sonya ever find her way there?
Snippet: The driver turns his head and stares at her for so long I fear the car will crash into the back of the giant truck spewing gray diesel all over his Volga’s front window.
“Prison?” he asks in an awed whisper, examining her still.
Mam takes a long drag of her cigarette.
“I wasn’t an important enough fish for any of that, I guess,” she says. “Still, I riled them enough.” She turns her head back to me. “Didn’t I, Sonya.”
As if I would know.
“They trailed me,” she says to the driver. “Called once a week. They made sure I didn’t get accepted into a single university I applied to.” She coughs, before continuing. “I didn’t want that for my daughter. The farther she was from me, the better off she would be.”
“How long has it been?” the driver asks after a long smoky pause. Mama doesn’t answer.
“Eleven years.” My voice cuts in, hoarse from all of the smoke filling the Volga.
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
