Imagine the darkest scenarios you can imagine, now multiply those by ten and you’ve got a pretty good idea of the living conditions in Russia during the first World War. Sandra Birdsall's story “The Russlander” is a profound novel focusing on the life of a small Russian girl during the first ...
Hard to talk about. Hard to read; it took me a couple of months of off-and-on again reading to get through it. Clearly well-written, prose-wise. (Even if her dwelling on awkward unpleasant details, like Amy's disgusting eating habits or her plastic teeth, rather turned me off.) But the different ...