The book
From the acclaimed author of THE HOTTEST DISHES OF THE TARTAR CUISINE — “a cruel comic romp ends as a surprisingly winning story of hardship and resilience” (The New Yorker).
Max lives with his grandparents in a residential home for refugees in Germany. When his grandmother—a terrifying, stubborn matriarch and a former Russian primadonna—moved them from the Motherland it was in search of a better life. But she is not at all pleased with how things are run in Germany: the doctors and teachers are incompetent, the food is toxic, and the Germans are generally untrustworthy.
His grandmother has been telling Max that he is an incompetent, clueless weakling since he was a child and she’d spend the day sitting in the back of his classroom to be sure he came to no harm. While he may be a dolt in his grandmother's eyes, Max is bright enough to notice that his stoic and taciturn grandfather has fallen hopelessly in love with their neighbor, Nina. When a child is born to Nina that is the spitting image of Max’s grandfather, things come to a hilarious if dramatic head. Everybody will have to learn to defend themselves from Max’s all-powerful grandmother.
Alina Bronsky writes of family dysfunction and machinations with a droll and biting humor, a tremendous ear for dialog, and a generous heart that is forgiving of human weakness. While Max’s grandmother recalls the outrageously nasty Rosa from Bronsky’s best-selling book, The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, this is a more tender and moving family portrait. Here the best-selling and internationally renowned author, while never abandoning her trademark and razor-sharp wit, tells a family story through a young boy’s eyes. Max, over the course of the story, will appreciate that people’s questionable behaviour may often be motivated by sadness.
“Irony, subtle humor, fascinating characters. A book that, after you finish it, you immediately want to start to read again.”—Stuttgarter Zeitung
“Uplifting, surprising, spot on.”—NDR Radio
The author
Alina Bronsky
The Daily Beast calls Alina Bronsky "an exciting new voice in the literary world." Bronsky is the author of Broken Glass Park and The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, which was named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. Born in Yekaterinburg, an industrial town at the foot of the Ural Mountains in central Russia, Bronsky now lives in Berlin.
Press
- Mar 4 2021
“...fabulous.”
— Heaven Ali - Jan 27 2021
“...funny, maddening, and surprisingly sentimental and compassionate.”
— Asymptote - Jan 12 2021
“A riot, as ever.”
— Lit Hub (Most Anticipated Books of 2021) - Jan 11 2021
“Dickensian.”
— Vulture - Jan 8 2021
“Brilliant, uplifting, irreverent.”
— Apple Books (Book of the Month)