A riveting memoir of two intertwined journeys- a Jewish family fleeing persecution in the Soviet Union and a young man seeking to reclaim a shattered past.
Lev Golinkin is the author of A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka. Mr. Golinkin, a graduate of Boston College, came to the US as a child refugee from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov (now called Kharkiv) in 1990. His op-eds and essays on the Ukraine crisis have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and Time.com, among others; he has been interviewed by WSJ Live and HuffPost Live.
"[A] hilarious and heartbreaking story of a Jewish family’s escape
from oppression....whose drama, hope and heartache Mr. Golinkin
captures brilliantly...A wonderful writer, witty and economical, he
generally applies a light touch to emotionally heavy material.
Adversity offers him rich comic material."
--The New York Times
"An awesome intercontinental whirlwind, funny and smart. Go
Ukraine!"
--Gary Shteyngart, bestselling author of Little Failure
"Golinkin's memoir is a look into life during the Cold War, as well
as a coming-of-age-story about finding yourself and where you
belong. And reading the harrowing details of his family's exodus
will have you counting your own blessings—and hugging the people
you love."
--Glamour.com
"Mr. Golinkin excels at these moments, describing the emotional
truth of immigration... His account is so raw that it manages
to capture at a visceral level the feelings of many of the million
Soviet Jews who left their homeland at the Cold War’s end."
--The Wall Street Journal
"[Lev Golinkin] convincingly relates the purgatory of
statelessness, the confused anticipatory state of the
immigrant."
--The Chicago Tribune
"Best memoir title of the year...Golinkin's A Backpack, a
Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka is fueled not by sly humor but by a
potent cocktail of earnestness and anger."
--The Oregonian
"Outstanding, original, and deeply moving."
--Chuck Hogan, bestselling author of The Town and co-author
of The Strain
"As the author turned nine during the Soviet Union’s final years,
his Jewish family fled hostile Kharkov, in Ukraine, with virtually
no possessions and made their way through central Europe to the
U.S. After college, he retracted their steps, thanking the NGO
workers and patrons who’d helped them – including the son of an
unrepentant Nazi Austrian baron. Golinkin’s account of the whole
saga is lucidly intelligent and humanistic – and deeply
moving."
--ELLE (The Elle's Lettres 2015 Readers' Prize)
"A vibrant, stylish work of literary nonfiction that's equally
joyous and tragic."
--The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philly.com)
"Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, there is a vibrant
literary canon written by former Soviet Jews who have come of age
in America. Gary Shteyngart may be the group’s founding father;
Anya Ulinich, its graphic novelist; Yelena Akhtiorskaya, its newest
ingenue. Mr. Golinkin, with this deeply personal and sometimes
painful dissection of the split identity of an emigre, has grabbed
the role of psychotherapist."
--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Despite the serious topic, Golinkin writes with a light touch; he
has a natural sense of humor and an easy style...[A Backpack, a
Bear, and] Eight Crates of Vodka opens with a depiction of
breathtaking cruelty. But by the end, readers may feel breathless
at the incredible kindness of strangers."
--Minneapolis Star Tribune
“There’s a gem on every page of A Backpack, A Bear, and Eight
Crates of Vodka. Lev Golinkin has the skill and vision necessary to
tell the story of a crumbling empire, and the soulfulness and flair
to capture that story in the saga of one man. He’s an alert, and
witty, and humane storyteller. I will eagerly read anything he
writes.”
--Avi Steinberg, author of Running the Books and The Lost Book
of Mormon
"Golinkin came to America as a Ukrainian child refugee with only
what he and his family could carry. But he's found his family
fortune in their exodus story--a soulful tale that is both
incredibly beautiful and wickedly funny, a tale of being lost,
being found and finding home."
--Helene Stapinski, author of Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked
Family History
"An unforgettable coming-of-age memoir of a boy from Soviet Ukraine
that entertains as it conveys insight into the meaning of America
in today's turbulent world."
--Jack F. Matlock, Jr., former ambassador to the Soviet Union under
Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and author of Reagan and Gorbachev and
Autopsy on an Empire
"In Lev Golinkin’s skillful memoir, A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight
Crates of Vodka, we share his family’s traumatic flight to freedom
from Soviet Ukraine, and then a young man’s brave attempt to build
a meaningful life in the United States."
--Peter Eisner, author of The Pope’s Last Crusade
"[Lev] Golinkin's personal tale of childhood in the Ukraine
has the specificity of his own story at its heart, and becomes more
than just a woeful yarn about repression in the Soviet Bloc. It can
be heartbreaking, but in unexpected and nuanced ways...When he
catches up with the present, the narrative fractures, skipping
between his return voyage to the Ukraine to answer his own
questions about leaving and accounts of his family's early
experiences in their new country. All these strains are working at
once in the story, as they are in his mind, as he digs up repressed
memories and reassembles fragmented ones. Golinkin's memoir travels
along at a confident clip, giving readers not just an immigrant
story, but also a detailed look at how the mind wraps itself around
a complicated life."
--Biographile.com
"Golinkin writes with dry humor about his experience but connects
emotionally...A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka blends
memoir and history into an intimate tale of personal growth."
--BookPage
“Golinkin convincingly portrays the miseries, and rare joys, of his
bullied, furtive childhood, and the limits it put on him….[He] has
created a deeply moving account of fear and hope.”
--Publishers Weekly
"An ex-Iron Curtain refugee-turned-American citizen tells the
emotional story of how he and his parents fled the Ukraine two
years before the collapse of the Soviet Union...Unflinching
honesty. A mordantly affecting chronicle of a journey to discover
that 'you can't have a future if you don't have a past.'"
--Kirkus Reviews
"Golinkin’s early memories are touchingly true to those of a
youngster, and he reports on his family members’ fears, troubles,
persistence, and patience with a keen eye and a memorable
voice...Eye-opening for those who come to the U.S. and for those
who help them do so."
--Booklist
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