The Free World

David Bezmozgis's The Free World was named to the 2011 Giller Prize Short List.

From the book cover:

Summer, 1978. In the bustling streets of Rome, strange new creatures have appeared: Soviet Jews who have escaped to freedom through a crack in the Iron Curtain. Among the thousands who have landed in Italy to secure visas for new lives in the West are the members of the Krasnansky family. Together, three generations of Russians Jews - some eager to embrace the opportunities emigration affords, others reluctant to leave the country to which they dedicated themselves body and soul - will immerse themselves in the carnival of emigration, with the promise and peril of a better life.
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Told through the eyes and memory of three members of the Krasnansky family (Samuil, Alec and Polina), The Free World is a captivating story about the immigrant experience. Samuil, the family patriarch, is a staunch communist who is reluctantly accompanying his family on their quest for freedom. Alec is Samuil's youngest son. At 26, he is naive - having been protected from the world by his father's status in the Soviet Union and his older brother's bad boy persona. Polina is Alec's wife and the only non-Jewish member of the Krasnansky family. This among other things makes her an outsider within the family.

The Story takes place over a span of about six month during the family's time in Rome, where they are waiting for visas so that they can start their new lives in Canada. For Samuil's part of the narrative, we learn about his experiences in the years leading up to the forming of the Soviet Union (including the murders of the father and grandfather by White Army soldiers), his time in the Red Army and his rise to prominence in the Communist Party. Alec and Polina's narrative is less political and more personal. We learn about their courtship and their experiences coming of age in the Soviet Union.

I love reading novels that open my eyes to events and experiences that are unfamiliar to me. The mark of a good book is one that sends me to Wikipedia to learn more.

My only issue with this book is that some of the scenes seem forced, as though they exist solely to demonstrate some of the Russian stereotypes that persist around gangsterism, black market trading and brutality. One such scene that comes to mind is one that leads up to the story's climax. Alec is roughed up by some guys that are affiliated with his brother but we never get a clear explanation of why it happens. Alec and his brother don't have issues and have served as each others confidantes in the past, so it doesn't add up when Alec doesn't go to his brother.

Otherwise, I really enjoyed this novel.

4/5

Up next: The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt