Immigrant City

I thought of how one might explain to a four-year-old the raft of complicated, legitimate and paranoid reasons that militated against her wearing her gift in public, but the mere prospect of opening my mouth felt hideous and exhausting. I was also aware that I was a man with a car door who feared that Nora's hijab would make us weirdly conspicuous [on the subway]. In the end it didn't matter. In an immigrant city, a city of innumerable struggles and ambitions, a white man with a car door and a daughter wearing a blue hijab attract less attention than you might expect.

Immigrant City is a collection of seven short stories, and for the most part, author David Bezmozgis explores just a few themes: the immigrant experience, and especially, the Jewish immigrant experience; and especially, the experience of Jewish immigrants who came to Canada as children from the former Soviet Union. The struggles these characters have are very particular to their circumstances, and details repeat themselves throughout the stories so that I had to keep wondering if I was essentially reading about the same character; if I was reading about the author himself. The first few stories were really good (with endings that twisted off surprisingly), and then the next few were just okay, and then the last was something completely different. An uneven collection, perhaps, but there were many good bits here. The stories:

People were always offering writers their stories, I thought. But those were rarely the stories writers wanted. Those stories were like children who always raised their hands in class. Good stories didn't raise their hands. – Immigrant City

A Jewish writer has an encounter with the former Somali minister of justice – now a blind and sick old man living anonymously in a rundown Toronto apartment complex – who would like for the writer to do something with his memoirs. In just a few short scenes, much is revealed about both the immigrant experience and the multicultural fabric of Toronto.

It happened, I thought. Years after you left here and ceased to know her, the lofty thing you dreamed of came true. You made it come true. What a comfort it would have been to know that. And what a surprise to learn that in twenty years you'd be standing here looking back with a longing equal to the longing with which you'd once looked ahead. – How It Used to Be

A semi-successful writer, during a time of routine marital disharmony, returns to a city of his youth and is waylaid by visions of the past, challenging a moral stance he had intended to take. So spare and yet intriguing .

One of life's cruelest lessons is that a person can't unknow something. And there exists enough unavoidable pain in the world that one would be a fool or a masochist to actively court more. – Little Rooster

Family secrets are revealed when a middle-aged man takes possession of his late grandfather's effects. The details provide a fascinating glimpse into the Soviet Jewish experience during and after WWII. Most fleetingly intriguing detail: Just what would you make of the neighbours your family had lived alongside for generations who chose to retreat with the defeated German army rather than stay and rebuild the village by your side? 

What constituted ordinary childhood? What did they have to go on? Report cards were composed in a language that bore only a faint resemblance to English. Parent-teacher conferences had the polite, anxious feel of second dates. Then there was the hysterical Internet. Contrast with his older sister. Comparison against Mark's imperfect memories of his own childhood. Did he have even a single distinct memory of himself at eight? Everything before – what, twelve? – felt like a brown haze punctuated by bright spectres of embarrassment or shame. –Childhood

In trying to determine if his son's development is proceeding appropriately, a man is confronted with memories of his own childhood. Nice, subtle shift of focus that makes something universal out of the particularities of a life.

It was easy to pity Svirsky, Roman thought. But for all his troubles, Svirsky was actually a lucky man. He possessed something Roman had lost and could never recover. Confused, tired, defeated, Svirsky would still go home to the expectant clamour of his young children. No money, no success, nothing the man attained would ever rival such joy. – Roman's Song

Another meditation on the need to appreciate the joys that can be masked by the struggles when you're just starting out – whether as a new father or recent immigrant.

A short distance up the beach, two middle-aged women in bathing suits were balancing against each other and advancing gingerly out into the Baltic. They had already progressed about fifty yards but the water was not yet to their waists. The sight triggered Victor's first memory of his Soviet childhood: stepping out into a dark-blue sea, conscious of danger but feeling as though he could go a great distance before he had anything to fear. – A New Gravestone for an Old Grave

When an LA-based lawyer is sent back to Latvia, the country of his birth, to attend to family matters, he is confronted by a man who seems to be living the life he might have had himself.

Kostya watched the larger gangster unbutton his jacket and slide his hand inside. Cursing Skinny Zyama, Kostya took a step in the gangster's direction. If the man had a gun, there wasn't much he could do about it, but he knew that if the gangster motioned toward his pocket, he was required to take a step forward. There was an understanding between everyone in the room that this was how it was supposed to be. The script had been written long ago and performed by other men in other rooms and in the movies. – The Russian Riviera

Funny, I never think of Russian mobsters and billionaires settling down in Toronto, but this story sets a satisfyingly noir narrative in that world.

In the end, I liked the shorter stories better than the longer ones, but together, they portray an interesting piece of the Toronto immigrant scene and I wouldn't be disappointed if it won the Giller Prize (for which it is short-listed).

The longlist for the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize:

Days by Moonlight by André Alexis

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Immigrant City by David Bezmozgis
Greenwood by Michael Christie
Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles
The Innocents by Michael Crummey
Dream Sequence by Adam Foulds
Late Breaking by K.D. Miller
Dual Citizens by Alix Ohlin
Lampedusa by Steven Price
Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta

Reproduction by Ian Williams


The prize was won by Ian Williams for Reproduction, but my favourite was Michael Crummey's The Innocents.