When you really think about it, only a handful of topics throughout human history have provided the foundation for realistic stories that have a dozen or more discernable attributes, among them: the stories are emotional, life-affirming, infuriating, theatrical, cinematic, revealing, and inexplicable. As such, it is no surprise that thousands upon thousands of novels have been written on these handful of topics—one of which, of course, is the exceedingly difficult and perilous lives of Jewish families in Eastern Europe in the first part of the Twentieth Century.

Hasn’t it all been told before? Haven’t all those adjectives already been tapped in countless novels whose authors found just the right words and just the right tones to tell their stories? Haven’t we had enough?

Absolutely not.  

In Forget Russia, we have the passion of a humanist and a truth seeker combined with the skill of an historian and natural storyteller. Ms. Bordetsky-Williams has that not-all-that-common ability to paint pictures in just a paragraph or two that share more than just story elements and dialogue; they also share the moods, smells, colors and emotions—not to mention the tensions, hopelessness, hopes and ironies—that play a part in so much of her narrative. As a tale that spans more than 75 years and two continents, there are quite a number of disparate episodes.  

The author travels seamlessly from one time period to another, with powerful imagery on nearly every page. Some of it is very cinematic, such as one scene early on when the young Jewish girl at the heart of that section must hide behind a tree trunk to avoid being seen by Russian soldiers, although she can hear them and must remain utterly still despite the alarming casual comments that come out of the soldiers’ mouths. Other scenes are simply evocative of the narratives of our own lives, such as when a visit to a nursing home is marred by “the smell of ammonia mixed with urine-soaked bedpans.” 

Indeed, it isn’t always easy to use the word enjoyment when discussing a story with so many joyless realities. But whenever we’re in the company of a highly skilled storyteller working toward a very important message—to never forget the perils of antisemitism—then the word enjoyment merely becomes synonymous with the word engrossing. 

Stories similar to Forget Russia have been told many times before. But the characters in this novel, their direct and indirect thoughts and commentaries, and narrative skill of the author, make it seem newly told. 

Bordetsky-WIlliams, whose previous work includes Letters to Virginia Woolf (a memoir), The Artist as Outsider in the Novels of Toni Morrison and Virginia Woolf, and three books of poetry, constructed what is essentially a double narrative of a young woman named Anna, a student of Russian literature, and her grandmother Sarah, whose memories of life in Russia set the literary gears in motion. In 1980, Anna willingly, even eagerly, travels to Moscow with fellow students, primarily in search of answers to why her grandmother lived the life she lived and made the choices she did. 

That, of course, is merely the barest of outlines. The story meanders—skillfully—into other territory, but to reveal too much would be to rob the reader of much of the emotional, life-affirming, infuriating, theatrical, cinematic, revealing, and inexplicable turns of the novel, much like countless Jews throughout recorded history were robbed of the lives they could have led, had the world been a somewhat different place.