THE RED PASSPORT
THE RED PASSPORT
The eight unpredictable, poignant, and often comic stories that make up Katherine Shonk's The Red Passport portray the tumult, hopes, and disappointments of Russians and visiting Americans alike in post-Communist Russia. Many of the Russians in these stories are strangers in their own country, learning to navigate a new landscape of Dunkin Donuts franchises that flourish where consumer culture had so recently been anathema; where the fall of the Soviet Union has not in fact brought about peace or prosperity; and where people still find a way to reach out and for love, despite often disastrous results.
In her elegantly crafted stories Shonk delves deeply into these people, finding both the nub of their disappointment and the truth of their good intentions. Describing a place that is at once exotic and disconcertingly familiar, The Red Passport is a moving and startling book that doles out amazement and delight in equal measure.
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PRAISE FOR THE RED PASSPORT
“...The people in The Red Passport, Katherine Shonk's collection of stories about life in post-Soviet society, can be roughly divided between real Russians and those who wish they were; natives trying to get out; well-meaning Americans trying to fit in; and some older types still trying to wake from the nightmare of the New World Order... Shonk sees these and other varied perestroikans with an eye both rueful and ruthless, sympathetic to their dreams even as she sees through them. She writes with the comfortable sense of one who has not only been there but taken a good look around.”
— the New York Times
“At times throughout these stories, Shonk's narratives sound like a translation of Russian literature, or triumphs of Slavic ventriloquism—not just because of shocking, Babel-like comparisons, but also the occasional Chekhovian quiet gesture... and the depiction of a Nabokovian character... The Red Passport—full of all sorts of precarious mixings of horror and comedy, Russians and Americans, saviors and terrorists, disappointments and hopes—is a fine debut collection of tales told in a new, clear voice.”
— the Chicago Tribune
“The Red Passport is a wonderful first collection of short stories, by the American writer Katherine Shonk, set in present-day Russia... Satire contends with clear-eyed pity in these brief chronicles of human fallibility... Shonk writes with a native English speaker's aplomb (and literary inheritance), but her detailed knowledge of the Russian settings and character suggest a Russian upbringing. Whatever the explanation, it cannot detract from the pleasures and insights of these shapely stories with their shared note of rueful humour.”
— Times Literary Supplement
“[Shonk] is disarmingly deft at getting into the heads of her Russian characters... Whether you are American or Russian... you must read these stories or have them read to you.”
— Los Angeles Times
“...stark and magnificent... These stories offer more than just impressively detailed political and social commentary; at the heart of each is a real, human character in difficult, complex relationships... Shonk's sentences stand sturdy and unglossed, a style not so minimalist as to be meaningless, but whose truths and descriptions affect us without help from overwrought prose. Despite their brevity, each of these eight stories is epic in detail and emotional depth, leaving us eager for the author's next effort.”
— Minneapolis Star
“In this promising debut collection set primarily in post-Communist Russia, expatriates and natives alike endeavor to make their way in a new social and economic landscape, often sharing an intense desire for whatever the other possesses: money, freedom, love, family... That tension lends these stories an impressive vitality.”
— Publisher's Weekly
“...important stories, at once timeless and searingly of the moment...”
— Booklist
“The Red Passport is an admirable first collection that looks modest but thinks big, turning intimate scenes between Russians and Americans into snapshots of cross-cultural confusion in this strange new global era... Shonk's characters may not always share the same mother tongue, but they speak the same language because of a rare and fleeting empathy that sets aside their disparate pasts and diverging futures.”
— The Moscow Times