This was an entertaining collection of short stories filled with equal parts tenderness, heartbreak and dry humour. It all centers in and around a cast of colourful characters living in a single crumbling apartment building in Soviet-era Ukraine. I enjoyed this collection and found it entertaining. The writing is simple, playful and laced with dark humour. It's one I'd recommend for sure.

What an eclectic collection of stories and characters all revolving around the same building in Ukraine. The stories included light-hearted humor, heartbreak, and loving compassion and were a good mix of it all. I enjoyed how cleverly it was written to have these, initially disjointed, stories all connect at the end.

I appreciate having had an opportunity to read and review this book. The appeal of this particular book was not evident to me, and if I cannot file a generally positive review I prefer simply to advise the publisher to that effect and file no review at all.

This book just didn’t do it for me. It had a lot of potential since it is a series of interconnected stories, which I typically love but I just didn’t like the characters.

These stories, all centered around one apartment building that doesn’t officially exist, highlight what it takes to survive a world that is as absurd as it is bleak. The late 80s were the breaking point for the USSR and its empire, but for the characters in these stories, the day to day struggle just to make it through another day remains. This book contains a touch of the surreal that allows readers to observe the people in its pages without being consumed by pathos.

Published by Doubleday on March 10, 2020

Good Citizens Need Not Fear is an interlocking collection of wry, subversive stories about people who are living absurd lives in Ukraine. The first five take place while the Soviet Union was intact. The last four are post-breakup. Before the fall, people have money but nothing to spend it on. After the fall, there are fifteen brands of sausage but nobody can afford them.

Bureaucrats are the foil of the Soviet-era “Novostroïka.” Daniil’s building has no heat, but when he complains to the town council, they tell him the building does not exist. Deciding that Daniil is wasting the town’s gas by heating the apartment with a stove, the town turns off the gas. At the canning combine, Daniil pretends to work while the combine pretends to pay him. Daniil must go to extreme lengths to prove that his building exists — and perhaps to prove to himself that his own existence is real.

“Little Rabbit” introduces baby Zaya, who has been abandoned or orphaned and thus taken to the baby house. At five, her quirky nature causes the Commission to label her as a defective part in the Soviet machine, so she is sent to a psychoneurological internat for rehabilitation. Zaya, it turns out, is not so easily contained.

A poet in the Kirovka Cultural Club named Konstantin also earns rehabilitation when he is accused of telling a political joke. Since most of the words in the joke have been redacted from the report, the narrator of “Letter of Apology,” who has been assigned to rehabilitate Konstantin, does not know what the joke might have been. The narrator imagines himself destined for the Honor Guard, but after working with Konstantin and his beguiling wife Milena, the narrator will be lucky to keep his job. This is the most amusing story in the collection.

By the time “Miss USSR” takes place, Konstantin is running the Kirovka Cultural Club. He copies the American idea of holding a beauty pageant, but he is reprimanded for allowing an outlandish Ukranian beauty named Orynko to win on grounds that are suspected to be political. Konstantin is ordered to revoke her title, which he neglects to do. When his superior decides to hold a Miss USSR pageant, Konstantin wants to enter Orynko as Miss Ukraine, but she has been sent away. Konstantin recruits Zaya from the internat to stand as her replacement, leading to a bizarre chain of events that turn Konstantin into a local hero.

Konstantin returns in the post-Soviet story “Lucky Toss.” He has now purchased the apartment next to his own, where he displays a saint, charging pilgrims for the privilege of visiting her. He employs the bureaucrat who tried to rehabilitate him as a guard. The story takes a mystical turn after the guard accidentally breaks the saint’s teeth and then his own. “Lucky Toss” is one of only two stories in the book that didn’t appeal to me.

A couple of stories revolve around bootlegs of western record albums that are pressed into x-rays and thus known as “bone records.” “Bone Music” is set in the Soviet era. Smena has the luxury of living alone in a two-room apartment, but might lose it if she is sent to prison for making bootleg recordings of decadent Western rock ‘n’ roll. The post-Soviet story “Roach Brooch” recalls how a grandfather refused to get a tumor removed because its existence entitled him to a free monthly x-ray of his guitar-shaped pelvis. Bone records are even more valuable as post-Soviet memorabilia that tourists love to acquire. The story is ultimately about grandparents who feel abandoned by their children.

Finally, in the post-Soviet “Homecoming,” Zaya returns to the now shuttered internat. Playing interrogator or torturer or prison guard, she works for a business that recreates the experiences of Ivan Denisovich for tourists. The rather tame experience exposes tourists to an experience less harsh than the lives of the homeless people they see from the internat’s windows — until Zaya elevates their terror. The story, the last in the volume, reunites Zaya with Konstantin and gives the collection a sense of closure.

The least satisfying story, “The Ermine Coat,” features Milena as a seamstress who makes an ermine coat for the child of a wealthy Italian. She hopes to earn a commission that will allow her sister and niece to emigrate to Canada, a dream that the niece undermines.

The tragicomic stories in Good Citizens Need Not Fear illuminate life in Ukraine. I was struck by the similarity of living without freedom (during the Soviet days) and living with unbridled freedom (in the post-Soviet version of the Wild West). They are flip sides of the same coin of misery. The Soviet-era stories have more energy and bite, but the collection as a whole gives the reader a sense of the absurdity that characterized Ukrainian life as the nation transitioned from a Soviet to an independent state.

RECOMMENDED

Solid collection of short stories - I’ve found I have a love for short story collections that all connect in some way (like my 2019 favorite, Disappearing Earth). This collection had a dark humor to it - it features “bone records” made out of real x-rays, a stolen saint corpse, and a child adopted from a horrible orphanage so she can compete in a beauty pageant. It’s weird, and fascinating, and at many points heartbreaking. I also read it in a day, so it’s a good one to pick up if you are looking for something quick!

An interesting collection of short stories, each of which stands on their own but are also joined together as they all involve residents of an apartment building in a small gray town in the Ukraine, both before and after the collapse of the USSR.

To make up for the grayness of the twilight of the USSR, Ms. Reva populates the stories with colorful characters, including the apartment building itself, which (from a bureaucratic standpoint) doesn’t exist – leftover material from other constructions was used to create 1933 Ivansk Street. Its residents are also a collection of leftover materials, trying to survive as all crumbles around them. An orphan escaping from the orphanage / institute features in several of the tales, sort of bookending the stories. In between we meet a mummified saint on display in a delicatessen case, a local beauty pageant organizer, a woman who copies American heavy metal albums onto x-rays but is terrified of leaving her apartment, a minor bureaucrat trying to get an official apology from a poet who gets the tables turned on him, an elderly couple who inherit a roach, a man working on increasing the amount of food that can fit in a can. All trying to survive as best they can.

Well worth a read, especially for those who know what life was like behind the iron curtain. Absurd, in the best way.

I requested and received a free advanced electronic copy from Doubleday Books via NetGalley. Thank you!

I loved this book-- it shows how behind every face, every wall, there is a story. I love that connecting the individual narratives there is a cohesive thread-- it turns this apartment building into a buzzing beehive of memory and life. Really nicely done. I will look for more from this author, definitely. It was engaging with a strong pace and the level of storytelling was consistent from chapter to chapter.

The interconnected stories in this collection are full of dark humor. Reva plumbs the absurd to offer a satisfying collection.

The book was too disjointed for me to enjoy.. I kept trying to align one character with another to no avail, and would end up wondering what happened to the character from chapter one. I suppose the fault is mine, I like a story that ties up loose ends instead of leaving the reader to wonder..

Very fine set of connected short stories set in Ukraine around the fall of the Soviet Union. Read as an e-galley from NetGalley. It was, at times, darkly humorous and touchingly melancholic. The setting shifts slightly from story to story but always seems to circle back to 1933 Ivansk Street. The building at that address seems to take on a mythic proportion, both because that address does not exist in any public record and also due to the human dramas that play out within its walls. All the deprivation and pathos of the lives of these Good Citizens make for fine fiction.

If you want humor, this book has it. If you want tragedy, this book has it. If you want romance, look for another title. Riva weaves an amazing story of everyday life in a building that the government doesn’t acknowledge even exists.

A fascinating collection of interconnected short stories exploring the Soviet period and its aftermath. It is puzzling in places but the threads finally weave together. It is at times moving and troubling, capturing the frustrating red tape and desperation of the system in which people still made real lives.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a digital ARC. Opinions are entirely my own.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC, all opinions are my own.

When I first began reading "Good Citizens Need Not Fear" I imagined it might be a darker twist on "Catch-22" style absurdity, not at all what I had been expecting from the description. I too had no need to fear as author Maria Reva built a series of well-interlocked stories that stood sturdier than the apartment block where the majority of the stories took place. At times poignant, at others oddly farcical and sweet, this is for readers looking for satirical humor that will tweak their funny bone.

Technically, the apartment block at 1933 Ivansk Street, in Kirovka, Ukraine, does not exist. The building was made of leftover material from its neighbors. It doesn’t appear on the official rolls. Consequently, its residents have a hell of a time getting heat, electricity, and other utilities. This lack of documentation also serves as a metaphor for the characters in Maria Riva’s brilliant collection of connected stories, Good Citizens Need Not Fear, who tend to fall into the cracks of Soviet and post-Soviet life.

The first half of the collection, which contains stories set before the fall of the USSR, was my favorite. For all the terrible absurdity and brutality, there was always the hope that the fall of the regime would make life better for the characters. I hoped that Daniil would be able to move out of assigned housing that he shares with far too many relatives (“Novostroïka”), that Konstantyn the Poet would no longer be persecuted for a joke, and that Smena would be able to openly listen to music from the west instead of secretively creating “Bone Music” (named for the historical recordings made on X-rays).

The stories in the second half—set in an independent but far from settled Ukraine—were harder for me to get through. I knew enough of history to realize that these characters with already marginal lives wouldn’t have much to look forward to unless that managed to ride the coattails of a rising oligarch. In “Lucky Toss” and “Roach Brooch,” characters scramble to keep themselves fed by cannibalizing anything of value. “The Ermine Coat” is particularly unsettling because of its subtext. It’s never stated directly, but there are hints that the narrator of this story is being prepared to support her family by going overseas and engaging in some kind of sex work.

The last story, “Homecoming,” features two recurring characters returning to 1933 Ivansk to witness the final collapse of a building that wasn’t supposed to exist in the first place. I had already noticed a theme building around the idea of foundations and systems, but this last story really brought home the idea that structures are only as good as their foundations. Communism was rotten. It was so riddled with inconsistencies, human error, human spite, and logical contradictions that it couldn’t last. Post-Soviet capitalism is so rapacious and unfair that it is equally doomed. Just like 1933 Ivansk, the only way forward is to tear everything down to rubble and start over.

Good Citizens Need Not Fear is an excellent collection of stories that I enjoyed for Riva’s deadpan humor and the way characters would walk in and out of the stories. I love a good collection of linked stories. The fact that they’re set in the Soviet Union/Ukraine meant they were just that much more interesting to me. Unlike a lot of Russian writing, this collection is not unrelentingly grim. There are disturbing moments and Kafka-esque scenarios, but things never got downright miserable or dreary. I enjoyed this collection quite a lot.

'Many people claim that they like certainty, but I do not believe this is true- it is uncertainty that gives freedom of the mind.'

Maria Reva’s collection of linked stories revolves around a “crumbling” apartment building on Ivansk Street in Ukraine before and after the fall of the Soviet Union. In the very first story Novostroïka, Daniil has the task of informing the people at the town council hall that the very building he occupies is without heat only to be told it doesn’t exist, according to the documentation. Tell that to the fourteen occupants in his suite alone, tolerating each other, stuffed in and happy just to have a place to “lie in peace”. Ah yes, a mistake, surely some human mistake- they will fix the problem soon… Poor Daniil, now work is a hassle, then it’s stuffing more food into fewer cans. Stuff…stuff.. stuff. Can living people be accused of not existing? Do they have documents to prove their building is real? Well?

Babies in Little Rabbit are themselves born natural disasters, but Zaya “little rabbit” is something altogether special among the unwanted and unhealthy children. Sanitrkas the closest thing to a mother the little ones have. Children lie sick with fevered dreams as holes are dug in the ground for the unlucky, but what about Zaya? What will become of this particular poor little orphan?

In Letter of Apology a celebrated poet has said more than he is allowed against leaders of the Communist Party and Soviet Society. The task of reeducating him falls to Mikhail Ivanovich. But soon, it is the poet’s wife Milena, who unnerves him, following Mikhail with a far ‘greater vigilance’ than his own. He just might find himself haunted by uncertainty.

My favorite story, a little piece of fascinating, strange Soviet history is about music and just how ingenious people were getting their hands on forbidden rock records. Smnea, a ‘simple pensioner’ finds a peculiar way to survive, safe only behind the secure walls of her apartment in the tale Bone Music (a hell of a fitting title, might I add). What’s a friend, what’s an enemy? This story has a sharp edge, it eviscerates the heart. The history about music records is true and well worth looking up after you finish this clever, excellent book.

Miss USSR is like all things American, counterculture, and just the thing the people need. All madness ensues when the girl meant to win, Orynko, is gone… to maybe Siberia, if you believe that. What is Konstantyn to do? What does a tiny deception, a little switcheroo really matter? Will things go according to planned?

In Lucky Toss a saint, mysteriously owned by Konstantyn Illych, is watched over by a guard. A saint rumored to have healing powers! Is this guard up to the task? Will it cost him his teeth?

A strange inheritance in Roach Brooch may or may not be something of great value, for the grandparents of the deceased.

The Ermine Coat serves to occupy a young girl’s aunt and mother, tirelessly sewing coats to be sold on the black market. With a turn of fate in their favor, a forgeign buyer wants something special to spoil his cherished little girl with. There is a plan in the works, and we all know what happens with the best laid plans…

In the final story, Homecoming, a special orphan returns to her origins to see what can be made of the ruins of her childhood. Maybe a chance to add yet another travel package for millionaires to ‘live in fear’… it’d be surreal if it didn’t seem like a possibility. The ending is sweet, strange and I absolutely loved it. What a collecion! There is dark humor in dire circumstances, and even in the fog of their most crushing defeats, the characters pick themselves up and get on with things. I can’t wait to read more by Reva, I was blown away.

Publication Date: March 10, 2020

Doubleday Books

Absolutely fantastic. Touching, funny, intelligent stories about Soviet Ukraine crumbling infrastructure and people who attempt to outlive it. Reva showcases the absurdity of that life in such humane, gentle way. I am wholeheartedly recommending it to everyone.

I had high hopes for Good Citizens Need Not Fear, a series of interconnected stories set in or near an apartment building in Ukraine that appears on no government maps. The possibilities for simultaneous humor and things-to-chew on was enticing. And this was a good book, just not as good a book as I'd hoped.

The individual stories work as stand-alones, but also fit together neatly. The writing style is direct, clear, and at times whimsical. The book makes delightful use of occasional, unusual illustrations that feel like little treats scattered about for readers to discover.

I think the main reason I didn't fall more wildly in love with this book is that it reminded me of, but did not compare successfully with, Anthony Marra's The Tsar of Love and Techno. Marra's book was less humorous than Good Citizens, so they don't occupy exactly the same reading niche. Depending on individual tastes, readers will come to different decisions about which of the two the prefer. For me, the bottom line was that the relationships among characters and those characters themselves were more complex in Marra's book—and I tend to value complexity.

That said, Good Citizens Need Not Fear is an entertaining read that goes beyond humor to depict life in a part of the world currently in the news, but unfamiliar to most U.S. readers. It's worth checking out.

I received a free electronic review copy of this book from the piublishers via NetGalley. The opinions are my own.

It was even better than I expected. I will be including it in an upcoming Book Riot piece on most anticipated upcoming titles.