Keith Gessen Knihy

"An unsparing, loving account of fatherhood and the surprising, magical, and maddening first five years of a son's life "I was not prepared to be a father-this much I knew." Keith Gessen was nearing forty and hadn't given much thought to the idea of being a father. He assumed he would have kids, but couldn't imagine what it would be like to be a parent, or what kind of parent he would be. Then, one Tuesday night in early June, the distant idea of fatherhood came careening into view: Raffi was born, a child as real and complex and demanding of his parents' energy as he was singularly magical. Fatherhood is another country: a place where the old concerns are swept away, where the ordering of time is reconstituted, where days unfold according to a child's needs. Whatever rulebooks once existed for this sort of thing seem irrelevant or outdated. Overnight, Gessen's perception of his neighborhood changes: suddenly there are flocks of other parents and babies, playgrounds, and schools that span entire blocks. Raffi is enchanting, as well as terrifying, and like all parents, Gessen wants to do what is best for his child. But he has no idea what that is. Written over the first five years of Raffi's life, Raising Raffi examines the profound, overwhelming, often maddening experience of being a dad. Gessen traces how the practical decisions one must make each day intersect with some of the weightiest concerns of our age: What does it mean to choose a school in a segregated city? How do you instill in your child a sense of his heritage without passing on that history's darker sides? Is parental anger normal, possibly useful, or is it inevitably authoritarian and destructive? How do you get your kid to play sports? And what do you do, in a pandemic, when the whole world seems to fall apart? By turns hilarious and poignant, Raising Raffi is a story of what it means to invent the world anew"-- Provided by publisher

When Andrei Kaplan’s brother Dima urges him to return to Moscow to care for their ailing grandmother, Andrei reflects on his life in New York. His girlfriend has gone silent, his dissertation adviser doubts his job prospects, and his finances are dwindling. A few months in Moscow might be just what he needs. He sublets his Brooklyn room, packs his hockey gear, and moves into his grandmother’s apartment, a gift from Stalin. She has outlived her husband and most friends, surviving communism and the tumultuous shift to capitalism, during which she lost her cherished dacha. Although she sometimes forgets who he is, she welcomes him home. Andrei navigates a changed Moscow, finding a place to play hockey, a café for emails, and making new friends, including activist Yulia. As his grandmother’s health worsens, Andrei feels increasingly disconnected from both Russia and America. He faces crucial decisions about his future and becomes involved with a group of leftists, testing his politics and loyalties. This wise and sensitive novel explores themes of exile, family, love, and fate, questioning what one owes to their birthplace and what it owes in return. Gessen’s graceful and humorous writing marks him as a significant voice in contemporary literature.

A portrait of young adulthood at the opening of the twenty-first century that charts the lives of Sam, Mark, and Keith, as they overthink their college years, underthink their love lives, and struggle through the encouragement of the women who love and despise them to find a semblance of maturity, responsibility, and even literary fame.

'A wise, mild and enviably lucid book about a chaotic scene' - New York Times