The Cosmopolitans
Mischievously funny Kalman launches her rambunctious first novel with Tolstoy’s oft-cited line, “Happy families are all alike.” The Molochniks, Jews who fled the Soviet Union and landed in Stamford, Connecticut, are unhappy in droll and aberrant ways. Passive Milla, the eldest of three daughters, finds herself engaged to the spoiled only son of snooty Manhattanites. Yana is a bossy feminist, and poor Katya suffers from a bizarre ailment: she unwillingly channels the voice of Brezhnev. Their imposing mother, Stalina, strives for pragmatism but finds herself bogged down by sentimentality thanks to her “Russian Soul,” which strangely enough resides in a lace handkerchief. Outnumbered and baffled by females, father Osip thinks, “America was the freedom to admit that you didn’t know what you were doing.” As each daughter stumbles into marriage (Yana’s union with an exchange student from Bangladesh makes for particularly hilarious cross-cultural satire), Kalman, waggishly skewers social and sexual mores. Composed of shrewd comedic vignettes encapsulating epic confusion, alarming disclosures, and bumbling luck, Kalman’s rollicking novel offers a piquant take on family life complicated by the trials of immigration. --Donna Seaman