Natasha And Other Stories - Tapa blanda

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'Exquisitely compact-rippling with wit, wisdom and compassion' Observer

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'Excellently written and quietly evocative...Haunting' Time Out

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'Captures the emotional complexities of immigration with such skill that they immediately establish this young author' Sunday Times

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"'A controlled and noteworthy debut collection' Independent on Sunday"

"a sharp and compassionate picture of the immigrant experience...David Bezmozgis's ear for dialogue and emotional range have established him as a gifted writer, and possibly an heir to Saul Bellow and Mordecai Richler" (Observer)

Meet the Bermans - Bella, Roman and their son Mark - Russian Jews who have fled the Riga of Brezhnev for Toronto, the city of their dreams. Natasha brings the Bermans - and the Russian Jewish enclaves of Toronto - to life in stories full of big, desperate, utterly believable consequence. In 'Tapka', six-year-old Mark's first experiments in English bring ruin and near tragedy to the neighbours upstairs. In 'Roman Berman, Massage Therapist', Roman and Bella stake all their hopes for Roman's business on their first, humiliating dinner with a North American family. In the title story, a stark, funny anatomy of first love, we witness Mark's sexual awakening at the hands of his fourteen-year-old cousin, a new immigrant from the New Russia.