Waiting for America

A Story of Emigration

Waiting for America:
A Story of Emigration
by Maxim D. Shrayer

ISBN: 978-0-8156-0893-6
6x9, 224 pages

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In 1987 a young Jewish man, the central figure in this captivating book, leaves Moscow for good with his parents. The refugees celebrate their freedom in Vienna and spend two months in Rome and the coastal resort of Ladispoli. While waiting in Europe for a US refugee visa, the book's twenty-year-old poet quenches his thirst for sexual and cultural discovery through his colorful Austrian and Italian misadventures. As he anticipates entering a new life in America, he movingly describes the baggage that exiles bring with them, from the inescapable family traps and ties to the sweet cargo of memory.

A Jewish emigration story, Waiting for America explores the rapid expansion of identity at the cusp of a new, American life. It is also a literary memoir of discovering the pleasures and limitations of Western democracies after living in the Soviet Union as a Jew. Told in a revelatory first-person narrative, Waiting for America is a vibrant love story, in which the romantic protagonist is torn between Russian and Western women.

Feature Story

From the Boston Globe, 4/15/2008

Praise for Waiting for America

"Now, after twenty successful years as an American, Shrayer reminisces about that difficult period with charm, insight, and unexpected humor. A lovely read."
—Lisa Pearl Rosenbaum, Jewish Book World