num_pages: 336
description: An exquisite portrait of mothers and daughters that reaches from Cold War Russia to modern-day New Jersey from the author of A Mountain of Crumbsthe memoir that leaves you wanting more (The Daily Telegraph UK).In A Mountain of Crumbs Elena Gorokhova describes coming of age behind the Iron Curtain and leaving her mother and her Motherland for a new life in the United States. Now in Russian Tattoo Elena learns that the journey of an immigrant is filled with everyday mistakes small humiliations and a loss of dignity. Cultural disorientation comes in the form of not knowing how to eat a hamburger buy a pair of shoes or catch a bus. But through perseverance and resilience Elena gradually adapts to her new country. With the simultaneous birth of her daughter and the arrival of her Soviet mother who comes to the US to help care for her granddaughter and stays for twenty-four years it becomes the story of a unique balancing act and a family struggle. Russian Tattoo is a poignant memoir of three generations of strong women with very different cultural values all living under the same roof and battling for control. Themes of separation and loss grief and struggle and power and powerlessness run throughout this story of growing understanding and finally redemption. Gorokhova writes about her life with a novelists gift says The New York Times and her latest offering is filled with empathy insight and humor.
language: English
title: Russian Tattoo: A Memoir
publisher: Simon & Schuster