No Return Address

October 1, 2000
Vlasopolos opens this pensive memoir by proclaiming that she is not Philip Roth and that she detests therapy. Indeed, she is no "self-hater," as Roth is often labeled, and she does not equivocate regarding her Jewish origins in order to establish a new sense of self. Her insightful autobiography easily reads like fiction and is actually more of a love letter to her family--especially her mother--than to her Romanian heritage and its place in her adult life in America. While this is not an inappropriate focus, the early chapters, which depict the political pressure that Vlasopolos could sense while growing up in Romania, are far more riveting than the later chapters, which center on her psychological quest of the West at the age of 13. The word "displacement" here apparently entails a form of indescribable longing rather than location or identity. Alas, it remains unclear whether the teenage girl eventually freed herself of the mental burdens of communism or is still unwittingly adapting to a culture in which the "I" overrules the "we." An English professor and a writer, Vlasopolos is clearly as talented as she is erudite, and despite the blurred ending, her memoir conveys well-above-average writing and a unique perspicacity worthy of accolades.--Mirela Roncevic, "Library Journal"

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