There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby

July 13, 2009
Masterworks of economy and acuity, these brief, trenchant tales by Russian author and playwright Petrushevskaya, selected from her wide-ranging but little translated oeuvre over the past 30 years, offer an enticement to English readers to seek out more of her writing. The tales explore the inexplicable workings of fate, the supernatural, grief and madness, and range from adroit, straightforward narratives to bleak fantasy. Frequently on display are the decrepit values of the Soviet system, as in “The New Family Robinson,” where a family tries to “outsmart everyone” by relocating to a ramshackle cabin in the country. Domestic problems get powerful and tender treatment; in “My Love,” a long-suffering wife and mother triumphs over her husband's desire for another woman. Darker material dominates the last section of the book, with tortuous stories, heavy symbolism and outright weirdness leading to strange and unexpected places. Petrushevskaya's bold, no-nonsense portrayals find fresh, arresting expression in this excellent translation.

September 15, 2009
"Songs of the Eastern Slavs." "Allegories." "Requiems." "Fairy Tales." These are the four categories assigned to the fantastic and allegorical stories assembled here, dark fairy tales for brave American readers. A living legend in Russia, Petrushevskaya is also controversial. The translators identify her tales as "nekyia", night journeys to the land of the dead, as in Homer's "Odyssey", and they're just long enough to haunt. Petrushevskaya's tone stays as grave as anything in the uncensored Grimm Brothers archives, but the writing is not without the black comedy familiar to readers of Soviet literature. Still, as the title suggests, dread and desperation run deep in these stories"She was convinced that if she could keep from spilling the vodka, all her wishes would come true." The more macabre tales of Poe, Gogol, or even Borges are valid reference points. VERDICT Readers who can stomach the gallows humor, or at least sympathize with the absence of a merciful god or benevolent neighbor, will find much to ponder in her stories.Travis Fristoe, Alachua Cty. Lib. Dist., FL

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2009
A novel and a book of stories in Petrushevskayas exceptionally bleak realist mode have been published in the U.S., but she remains obscure here, whereas, her translators say, she is the best-known living writer in Russia. Her fantasies play out in the same totalitarian atmosphere of scarcity, suspicion, hopelessness, and fear as does her realist fiction. The purely descriptive subtitle calls them all fairy tales, but according to the titles of the four sections into which theyre sorted, theyre Songs of the Eastern Stars, Allegories, Requiems, and finally, Fairy Tales, and if its true that those in the final group contain the most supernatural events, there are plenty of inexplicable things in the others (quite often, the dead return bodily to their loved ones). All are told as if by a plain tale-teller, whether in first or third person: that is, directly, specifically, and concretely, without explicit interpretation. Sometimes, the density of action and the fact that characters are called only by first names, sobriquets, or functions (the father, the doctor, etc.) obscure the personae and encourage thinking of them as Everymen, Everywomen, and Everychildren, not singular personalities. If most of the stories end sadly, some at least suggest that better things may come. The auras of Samuel Beckett and the baleful Albanian magic realist Ismail Kadare blend in Petrushevskayas work.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)