Maria Reva - Good Citizens Need Not Fear - Stories

Huge appreciation to my parents, Jane and Alex, for their unwavering support. This book began with a lunchtime conversation about our old building in Ukraine (also missing from municipal records). I’ve gone back to that building many times to make sure it still stands. But maybe it was never really there?

Much gratitude to my grandfather Georgiy Reva, a well of historical and literary knowledge.

To Little Jerry, for standing guard.

To Michael, for everything. To Michael’s parents, for their curiosity, openness, and kindness.

And thank you, forever, to my sister Anna Pidgorna, first reader and confidante, who gave me the courage to write. This book is for you.

Maria Reva was born in Ukraine and grew up in Canada. She holds an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. Her fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, McSweeney’s, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere, and has won a National Magazine Award. She also works as an opera librettist.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2020 by Maria Reva

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

www.doubleday.com

DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Several stories originally appeared, some in slightly different form, in the following publications: “Novostroïka” in The Atlantic (December 2016); “Little Rabbit” as “Unsound” in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern (August 2018); “Letter of Apology” in Granta (November 2018); and “The Ermine Coat” published by the Writers’ Trust of Canada and winner of the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award in 2018.

Cover illustration by Shout

Cover design by Emily Mahon

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Reva, Maria, author.

Title: Good citizens need not fear / by Maria Reva.

Description: First edition. | New York : Doubleday, [2020]

Identifiers: LCCN 2019018630 (print) | LCCN 2019019398 (ebook)

Classification: LCC PS3618.E876 (ebook) | LCC PS3618.E876 A6 2020 (print) |

DDC 813/.6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2019018630

ISBN 9780385545297 (hardcover)

Ebook ISBN 9780385545303

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