What Isn't Remembered: Stories PDF
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“What Isn’t Remembered is an extraordinary work of fiction: Kristina Gorcheva- Newberry has given us stories that are immersive and so richly imagined, alternately elegiac and slyly comic, always arresting and lyrical. I wanted to live in the worlds Gorcheva- Newberry has so skillfully created in one story after another. I loved this book.” — Christine Sneed, author of Little Known Facts “You can read Kristina Gorcheva-N ewberry’s What Isn’t Remembered for a revealing look into the lives of Russian immigrants in the U.S., or for the fearless depiction of relationships between women; but most of all you should read her for the startlingly gorgeous language she employs to powerful effect in story after story, from the title piece, ‘What Isn’t Remembered,’ with its lavish allusions to classical music and the convincing correlations between life and love and art, to the heartbreaking ‘Boys on the Moskva River,’ with its portrait of a family struggling to survive during the slow collapse of the Soviet Union. What Isn’t Remembered may be a literary debut, but Kristina Gorcheva-N ewberry is a writer who comes to us in full blossom. She has clearly traveled a long road to bring us this brilliant first collection of stories.” — Edward Falco, author of Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha: New and Selected Stories “Short stories beg for brevity but can accommodate plenitude, demand velocity but can in one shaken snow globe reveal a whole winter. Skilled authors can startle us with stories of consequence, gravity, and comedy in modes both elegant and earthy. Kristina Gorcheva-N ewberry is such a writer. Her passionate stories about desire, loss, longing, guilt, and dis- placement are stunning. Her characters have wrested their survival from all manner of entanglements with lyricism and force, empathy and recogni- tion. Gorcheva-N ewberry empowers them with her own impressive trove of knowledge— the language of medicine, food, music, anatomy, apple gathering. She reveals life in the raw. Yet these are love stories, too, and can crack the heart. What Isn’t Remembered is an enthralling, beautifully conceived collection by a gifted writer.” — R. T. Smith, author of Doves in Flight The Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction Editor Kwame Dawes W H A T I S N ’ T R E M E M B E R E D Stories Kristina Gorcheva- Newberry University of Nebraska Press Lincoln © 2021 by Kristina Gorcheva- Newberry Acknowledgments for the use of copyrighted material appear on page 252, which constitutes an extension of the copyright page. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Gorcheva- Newberry, Kristina, author. Title: What isn’t remembered: stories / Kristina Gorcheva- Newberry. Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [2021] | Series: The Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction Identifiers: lccn 2021007059 isbn 9781496229137 (paperback) isbn 9781496229229 (epub) isbn 9781496229236 (pdf) Subjects: lcgft: Short stories. Classification: lcc ps3607.o5928 w47 2021 | ddc 813/.6— dc23 lc record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov /2021007059 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. Set in Adobe Garamond by Mikala R. Kolander. Designed by N. Putens. For Randy, Albina, and Albert She looked at the steps; they were empty; she looked at the canvas; it was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the center. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision. —V irginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse You think that would have changed things? The answer is of course, and for a while, and never. —A lice Munro, Too Much Happiness Boys on the Moskva River 1 All of Me 21 The Heart of Things 37 A Lullaby for My Father 52 Heroes of Our Time 69 Simple Song #9 83 Nepenthe 89 Beloveds 109 The Suicide Note 118 Second Person 134 Gene Therapy 142 And What Rough Beast 156 No Other Love 165 Pictures of the Snow 189 Champions of the World 209 What Isn’t Remembered 236 Acknowledgments 251
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