Competitive Non-Fiction

This book caught my eye when I was wandering through the bookstore looking for something that would introduce me to a life completely alien to my own, but still realistic and possible in this world. Coming from generations of Christian Canadians, I know very little about the Jewish faith and about the process of immigration so I selected The Free World by David Bezmozgis, a novel about a Jewish family in the process of emigrating from the Soviet Union in 1978.

The Krasnansky family has taken the first step towards leaving behind their lives in the Soviet Union and is now in Rome, trying to decide where they want to move to, and slowly stumbling through bureaucratic hurdles. The story moves back and forth in time, slowly revealing why the family has left their homeland and how their family formed their complicated and sometimes strained dynamic.

The author presents a beautifully-written and highly descriptive account of people in transition from one life to another. While I struggled to truly relate to any of the characters, I did find that each was well-drawn and complex in their own way. The decisions that each of them made were convincing in that it seemed in tune with what someone with their particular suite of flaws and ticks would choose. I did find that the author focused a bit too much on the negative traits of each character, and so their good traits didn’t shine through, giving me little to hold onto.

I wasn’t completely enthralled with this novel, but it left me feeling incredibly conflicted and gave me a lot to think about, which are both good things. While this particular novel didn’t really grab me, I did learn a lot more about what people go through when they’re immigrating. Honestly, I’m a little bit embarrassed to admit that such a critically acclaimed book didn’t really do it for me.