Short Story Review: Natasha by David Bezmozgis

This story, like the rest of Bezmozgis’s debut collection Natasha (released in 2004), is narrated by Mark Berman, a proxy for the author’s own immigrant experieince. Born in Latvia in 1973, immigrants to Toronto in 1980, the Bermans live a life of slow ascendancy. The father toils long hours at shit jobs, and by the time Natasha begins, they have finally settled in to a suburban homestead.

Mark is sixteen, on the cusp of North American adulthood and in the nexus where the old ways of Soviet Russia collide with suburban ennui. He sits in basements and gets high. He hangs with his dealer, in full retreat from either world.

Then Natasha comes into his life. Fourteen, a recent immigrant from Moscow, daughter in law to his uncle, who has married Natasha’s mother out of convienence and desperation. Natasha is a perfect neutral, a victim of sexual exploitation completely desensitized to her own history of abuse, whose sole motivation seems to be an escape from the permanent conflict with her mother. But Bezmozgis treats this highly charged situation with a delicate touch, never stooping to pornography or sensationalism. As the marriage of convenience crumbles, and Natasha stands in need of saving, Mark grows, rises, and makes his decisions.

By the end, Bezmozgis has handled so many threads with such delicacy, I can only sit in awe. This may be one of the ten best stories I’ve ready in the past ten years. Or ever. So far, this has been Bezmozgis’s only book, but I’m eagerly waiting for more.

Natasha can also be found in Best American Short Stories, 2005.