David Bezmozgis - Natasha and Other Stories

But not so much as to be able to invent such stories yourself?

I see where you are going with this. What we’re talking about here is a question of magnitudes. It reminds me of one of the theories used to prove the existence of God. The argument goes that one can only create something less complex than one’s self. Which is to say that man could not have created man. For this, a superior force was necessary — namely, God. The same can be extended — though perhaps not perfectly — to the concept of writing. Though one can appreciate the suffering of another even if one has not experienced it — just as we can contemplate the superior idea of God — one could no more hope to write such a story in the absence of a personal acquaintance with suffering than one could hope to create God.

And what if I were to tell you that, contrary to what you have read about me, I am not in fact a Jewish, Latvian emigrant. What if I were to tell you that I have never been to either Latvia or Toronto?

I would consider that very suspect.

Because of what you have read about me?

Yes. But, on an even more superficial level, because I composed the prefix 416 before dialing the seven digits of your telephone number and I know that this prefix corresponds to the area code for Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

What if I have entered into an arrangement with the phone company? Could I not have paid them a fee to grant me this area code for the express purpose of perpetrating this very deception?

Possible, of course. But not likely.

What is “likely?” “Likely” is a state of mind. What is unlikely for multitudes may be very likely for me. You have no way of determining that.

Fair enough.

What if I am actually a black man, born to Catholic parents in Togo, and a convert to Islam? What if you have reached me at my hut in Madagascar, where I have made my living tending goats and wild birds for the past fifteen years? What if I have never actually met either a Russian, a Latvian, or a Jew? Would you still believe that I was capable of having written the book you have described?

In a word: no.

But what if I insist that this is true?

Why would you do that?

Because I feel like it. Because it amuses me.

Because I am not entirely right in the head.

Because I hate being interviewed.

Is that true?

Ask my goats.

Natasha and Other Stories: a history

Natasha and Other Stories, David’s first book, has been translated into twelve languages. Stories from Natasha have been nominated for The National Magazine Awards in Canada, as well as the National Magazine Awards in the US. The title story is included in Best American Short Stories 2005.

Award Distinctions for Natasha

2005 Winner, Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for First Book (Caribbean and Canada region)

2005 Winner, Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize for Fiction (UK)

2005 Winner, Canadian Jewish Book Award for Fiction (The Martin and Beatrice Fischer Award)

2005 Finalist, National Magazine Awards, for “Natasha”—Fiction (US)

2005 Finalist, LA Times Arthur Seidenbaum First Fiction Award

2005 Finalist, Canadian Booksellers Libris Award for Fiction

2005 Finalist, Danuta Gleed Literary Award

2004 Winner, Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction

2004 Winner, National Magazine Awards Silver Prize for “Minyan”—Fiction (Canada)

2004 Finalist, Governor General’s Award for Fiction

2004 Finalist, Guardian First Book Award (UK)

2004 Finalist, Borders Original Voices Award

Other Distinctions for Natasha

Best American Short Stories 2005 (“Natasha”)

A New York Times Notable Book of 2004

The New York Public Library “25 Books to

Remember,” 2004

LA Times 25 Best Books of the Year

The Globe and Mail 100 Best Books of 2004

The Economist Best Books of 2004

Amazon.com Top 10 Books of 2004

The Independent Best of 2004

Chicago Tribune Best of 2004

Publishers Weekly Best of 2004

Leonard Michaels

If I have a literary mentor, someone whom I admire above all other writers, it is Leonard Michaels. I see his influence throughout Natasha and in most things I write. Michaels was known primarily as a short story writer. His first two books, Going Places and I Would Have Saved Them If I Could, were both collections of stories. He later wrote a fine novel, The Men’s Club, which attracted a lot of attention and was made into a (disappointing) movie. His books are written with a combination of intelligence, humor, and a fascination with the cruelty and absurdity that underlies people’s relationships with each other. Of course, this can be said of any number of writers, but what sets Michaels apart is his attention to language and his ability to engage a reader and keep him engaged. Michaels’s stories are never boring. Neither are they sensationalist or trendy. He is capable of advancing plot and delving into his characters’ thoughts without ever bogging down. Not a word is wasted. His work has a tremendous energy and this energy does not come at the expense of real emotion. I have read all of his work, and I return to his collection I Would Have Saved Them If I Could often. I employ it as my textbook and bible.

Isaac Babel

Babel needs no introduction from me. Anyone familiar with his work should also be able to see the way in which Natasha is indebted to his Odessa Stories. That Babel is widely regarded as one of the great short story writers is, to my mind, entirely deserved. His stories are intricately crafted. They are brief and powerful. They, like Michaels', demonstrate a supreme attentiveness to language. You will never find a cliché in a Babel story. The language he uses is simple — never convoluted — and his imagery is earthy, striking, and immediately accessible. Also, his stories manage to create a feeling that is remarkably lifelike. Often the plots are not linear; rather things happen in response to a curious, idiosyncratic logic which nevertheless makes perfect emotional sense. They feel like an imitation of life — how life feels — without feeling imitative. The cycle he wrote about his childhood and maturation in and around Odessa very much influenced Natasha in both mood and form.

Sergei Dovlatov

Dovlatov began his career in the Soviet Union and ended it in New York in the 1990s. He came of age in the 1960s and wrote about the Soviet Union in its decline. More than Michaels and Babel, Dovlatov was a humorist if not an outright satirist. But his humor and satire were leavened with a deep sympathy for his characters and an identification with the strange forces that guided people’s lives and fates. As far as I know — and I have read all of his books available in English translation — Dovlatov wrote about Dovlatov. Or, to put in another way, he wrote about a character based upon himself. Other characters in his stories are based upon his friends and family. Some would mistake this for autobiography, but it seems to me that he was simply satisfied with the material immediately at hand. His book Ours: A Russian Family Album (which I was introduced to after Natasha was published) is a moving but very funny examination of one man’s family. The book opens with “Dovlatov’s” grandparents and takes as the subjects for its stories different members of his family. The narrator features in most, though not all, of the stories. In the end, a vibrant picture emerges of this family and the place and time that formed them. Also worth reading is The Compromise —billed as a novel but really a very clever cycle of stories about Dovlatov’s journalistic career in Soviet Estonia.