Published by Cadmus Press
February 9, 2021
223 pages
ISBN: 978-1984897589
Review by Laurisa Hrycyna
Maria Reva is a Canadian writer, who was born in Ukraine. She moved to Canada with her family in childhood, and grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia.
She is most noted for her short story collection Good Citizens Need Not Fear, which won the 2022 Kobzar Book Award.
The collection of linked stories is set in Ukraine and takes place before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is about ordinary people living in a typical Soviet block apartment building. In the first story called Novostroika (new building) we learn this building #1933 Ivansk St. has no heat. When the tenant Daniel Petrovich Blinov goes to the city administration to complain he is told by a bureaucrat that the building doesn’t exist.
We learn later that it doesn’t exist because it was built from the surplus materials from the adjacent two buildings. Our readers wondered about the significance of the address “1933” because the Holodomor took place between 1932-1933.
Each story introduced us to a new protagonist and set of circumstances. Although we could not see the connection between the first two stories, it became more apparent by the end of the third. Zaya, Milena Markivna and Konstantyn Illych, were particularly intriguing main characters whose lives closely intersected with each other as the stories unfolded. The stories illustrated acts of resilience, defiance and creativity in response to crushing and absurd bureaucratic dictates.
Some of the stories included page long lists of vegetables, canning size calculations and diagrams of the apartment building which added to the quirkiness of the book.
This book generated thoughtful discussion amongst the book club members and allowed us to share personal experiences we had from earlier trips to Ukraine.
We would recommend this book to others to read.
