aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] Fwd: Askold Melnyczuk's Ambassador of the Dead

[Robert De Lossa <rdelossa@fas.harvard.edu>]

[This press release just came in from the publisher. I read a 
pre-release copy of the book. It's a great novel and probably will 
define the post-war Ukrainian immigration in the American literary 
imagination. For non-Ukes who interact with the Hromada, it's a must 
read. For Ukie-Americans, this is your novel. I hope Counterpoint 
sells a zillion of 'em.--RD]


AMBASSADOR OF THE DEAD  TO BE PUBLISHED ON MAY 1

"Imagine Elizabeth, New Jersey, just after WWII... in a poor but 
close-knit neighborhood among people from Ukraine, displaced persons 
now making new lives in America and raising families...a glorious 
gem..."
			Kirkus Reviews
"compelling..."
		Booklist
"a major novel"
		James Carroll, National Book Award Winner


Sure to be controversial, Askold Melnyczuk's new novel, Ambassador 
of the Dead, will be published by Counterpoint Press on May 1. 

One Sunday morning, Nick Blud, a successful Boston physician, is 
home in bed when he receives a phone call from Adriana Kruk, the 
mother of a boyhood friend.  The beautiful Adriana, who once 
vacationed at her family's luxurious summer home on the Black Sea, 
now lives in a run-down apartment in New Jersey.  Abandoned by her 
husband and estranged from her sons, she summons Nick back to his 
old neighborhood, where something unspeakable has happened--exactly 
what, no one is willing to say.

With their experience shaped by the Ukrainian famine and the Nazi 
occupation and the Holocaust, not all immigrants make the transition 
to the freedoms of the new world easily.  As the best-selling Ha Jin 
puts it, "Melnyczuk has brought to light the flip side of the 
American dream shaded by the dark loneliness of the human heart."

The novel's frank treatment of sexuality, as well as the more 
problematic aspects of Ukrainian history, make it a first in 
American fiction, while its broader themes give it a universal 
appeal.  A harrowing tale about friendship and love, America and the 
immigrant's dream, Ambassador of the Dead is in fact a page turner.

Melnyczuk teaches in the Bennington Graduate Writing Seminars and at 
Boston University where he edits AGNI.  His first novel, What Is 
Told, was a New York Times Notable Book and he has received awards 
from the Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, the Massachusetts Cultural 
Council, and PEN.

He will be reading from Ambassador of the Dead  for the Harvard 
Bookstore on Monday, May 7th in the Harvard Information Office in 
Holyoke Center, Harvard Square at 6:30; at the Brookline Booksmith 
on May 8th at 7 (279 Harvard Avenue); and, with Marcie Hershman, at 
Newtonville Books (296 Walnut Street) on May 22 at 7:30.

For further information, contact John McLeod at 
John.McLeod@perseusbooks.com or call 202-393-8088.