On The Bookshelf Stephan Becharas and the staff of THE GALLERY RESTAURANT 41 Wish their many friends and customers Leaving Latvia A Very Happy New Year! Thank you for your gracious patronage. A family of emigres struggles to carve out a new life We sincerely wish everyone the best in health, joy and prosperity. OPEN 7 DAYS: MON.- SAT. 7 a.m.- 9:30 p.m. SUN. 8 a.m.- 9 p.m. 6638 Telegraph Road at Maple in the West Bloomfield Plaza in Toronto in David Bezmozgis' debut collection. SANDEE BRAWARSKY Special to the Jewish News 45 41 248-851-0313 Aimennu nki il m ue n . 11111,1111L 882760 FRESH FOOD, GOOD FUN, GREAT SERVICE 20% OFF SATURDAY NIGHT SPECIAL Baby Back Rib Dinner Food Bill of $40 or more $13.95/slab Excludes alcohol With coupon With coupon L (248) 683-5458 2442 Orchard Lake Road • Sylvan Lake 1/4 Mile West of Middlebelt in Loading Dock Plaza . ... . ... 882110 ... " NaMIMINNENICEO2Mill 505 S. Lafayette Royal Oak MI 48067 Call Simone at: 248.544.7373 Website: simonevitale.com Email: info@simonevitale.com 792850 Ristorante NOW HERING...ALL POSITIONS! Fine Dining • Authentic itafiano Menu & Atmosphere Book your next special event with us! Contact Antonella! Reservations Accepted RTN 9/10 2004 100 Specialty & Traditional Pastas Chicken • Veal • Beef • Fish Our Personalized Signature Series Large Selection of Fine Wines Live Entertainment Friday 6- Saturday Nights 248-360-9671 7110 Cooley Lake Road 882190 T he three As in Natasha (Farrar Straus & Giroux; $18) are filled in by tiny stylized Matrushka dolls, the traditional Russian stacking dolls, on the book jacket of David Bezmozgis' radiant debut. In this collection of linked stories, the three figures at the center are a mother, father and son who leave Riga, Latvia, for Toronto, Canada. The sto- ries are told from the point of view of the son, Mark Berman, who observes everything and helps interpret the New World for his parents. Like his narrator, Bezmozgis is an immigrant from the former Soviet Union. He left Riga in 1979 and arrived in Toronto in 1980 at the age of 6. But, as he says in a recent interview in New York, the stories are "not very autobiographical — they are only superficially based on my family. It's a combination of incidents that hap- pened, things I misremembered, stories that happened to other immigrants." Bezmozgis writes with a beautiful economy of words, and with warmth, wit and loyalty toward a community he feels very much part of. The first story opens soon after the family arrives in Toronto, and they live "one respectable block" from the center of the Russian community with its "flapping clothes- lines" and borsht-smelling hallways. Through the stories, they struggle and progress to better apartments and to a suburban house "at the edge of Toronto's sprawl." Each story is a fully lived moment on the Berman family's journey toward fit- ting in. In Latvia, Roman Berman was a massage therapist, a trainer of Olympic athletes. Sometimes, when the father isn't around, the young boy takes out and studies an old photo of his father in Riga, his face carrying the "detached confidence of the highly placed Soviet functionary." For the boy, it was comforting to think that the man in the picture and my father were once the same person." In the story "Roman Berman, Massage Therapist," the father passes difficult certification exams, sets up an office with his name on the door and then waits for clients. A rabbi suggests advertising, and they pass out copies of a flier full of newly acquired superla- tives. When a doctor calls and invites the family to Shabbat dinner, they accept, full of hope. He writes, "Before Stalin, my great- grandmother lit the candles and made an apple cake every Friday night. In my grandfather's recollection of prewar Jewish Latvia, the candles and apple cakes feature prominently. When my mother was a girl, Stalin was already in charge, and although there was still apple cake, there were no more candles. NATosHA xnd glZi t t.4 David Bezmoz8is "The stories are not very autobiographi- cal — they are only superficially based on my family," says "Natasha" author David Bezmozgis. "By the time I was born, there were neither candles nor apple cake, though in my mother's mind, apple cake still meant Jewish. With this in mind, she retrieved the apple cake recipe and went to the expensive supermarket for the ingredients." They arrive at Dr. Kornblum's home with "feigned confidence" and a warm apple cake. The doctor means well but is patronizing, even insulting, sending the family home with their cold apple cake. Fearing more bad luck and rejec- tion, they dump the cake, expensive ingredients and all. With poignancy, Bezmozgis shows how the yearnings of the immigrants