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by Lara Vapnyar
In a triumphant return to the short story, the form in which she made her extraordinary debut with There Are Jews in My House, Lara Vapnyar gives us a delightful new collection in which food and love intersect, along with their overlapping pleasures, frustrations, and deep associations in the lives of her unforgettable characters.
From “Broccoli” to “Borscht” to “Puffed Rice and Meatballs,” each of these new stories invites us into the uniquely captivating private worlds of Vapnyar’s Eastern European émigrés. There’s Nina, a recent arrival from Russia, for whom the colorful abundance of the vegetable markets in New York represents her own fresh hopes and dreams. . . Luda and Milena, who battle over a widower in their English class with competing recipes for cheese puffs, spinach pies, and meatballs . . . Sergey, who finds more comfort in the borscht made by a paid female companion than in her sexual ministrations. Each of the women and men who inhabit these witty, tender, and beautifully observed stories needs and longs for the taste and smell of home, wherever--and with whomever--that may turn out to be.
Russian in its wit and in many of its rich details, but American in its insistence on the quest for personal happiness, however provisional and however high the cost, Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love masterfully illuminates a very particular facet of desire with entirely charming results.
"She ends the collection with a blog-voiced roundup of recipes that's incongruent with the delicate stories, but her take on the poignant oddities of New York Russian émigré life is universally palatable." - Publishers Weekly.
"The book feels thin and is over too fast, leaving the reader, perhaps appropriately, hungry for more." - Library Journal.
"Flavorful amuse-bouches from a talented chef." - Kirkus Reviews.
This information about Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
© Sigrid Estrada
Lara Vapnyar came to the US from Russia in 1994. She is a recipient of the Guggenheim fellowship, and Goldberg Prize for Jewish fiction. She is the author of There Are Jews in My House, Memoirs of a Muse, Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love, The Scent of Pine, and Still Here. Her stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Harper's, and Vogue.
Name Pronunciation
Lara Vapnyar: Vap-nee-arh
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