A woman growing up in a family of Russian immigrants in the 1910s seeks a thoroughly American life. Yelena is the first American born to her Old Believer Russian Orthodox parents, who left two older daughters behind to build a life in a Pennsylvania Appalachian town. This town, in the first decades of the 20th century, is filled with Russian transplants and a new church with a dome. Here, boys quit grade school for the coal mines and girls are married off at fourteen. The young pair up, give birth to more babies than they can feed, and make shaky starts in their new world. But Yelena, mindful of the thoroughly American life she craves, puts off all suitors. Through a chain of fateful meetings, she is gradually wooed by the attentive but sickly Viktor Gomelekoff, born in her parents' hometown, who seems to share her yearnings. When she discovers what choosing Viktor has cost her, her life is forever changed. Will she find her happy American ending or will a dreaded Russian ending be her fate? In this immersive novel, Zuravleff weaves Russian fairy tales and fables into a family saga in which every person is striving to create their own story within the storied American landscape. The narrative of transformation from immigrant to citizen is as winding, treacherous, and fraught in the time of the novel as it is today.
