American Ending, Mary Kay Zuravleff
American Ending, Mary Kay Zuravleff
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

American Ending
A Novel

Author: Mary Kay Zuravleff

Narrator: Mary Kay Zuravleff

Unabridged: 10 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/23/2024

Synopsis

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 are building a life in a Pennsylvania Appalachian town. This town, in the first decades of the twentieth 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. However, Yelena craves a different path. 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 within the storied American landscape. The challenges facing immigrants—and the fragility of citizenship—are just as unsettling and surprising today as they were 100 years ago. American Ending is a poignant reminder that everything that is happening in America has already happened.

About Mary Kay Zuravleff

Mary Kay Zuravleff is the award-winning author of American Ending, a gritty and darkly humorous novel inspired by her family's saga and the fact that she could not find her Appalachian coal mining ancestors-immigrants of the Old Believer Russian Orthodox faith-on any bookshelf. How long does it take to write a book? This one has been in the works ever since her mother named her for her two grandmothers: Mary, who married her Russian-born husband at fourteen and had eleven children, and Kay, who forced the mining company to pay in cash rather than scrip and then got her husband away from the mines before black lung killed him.

Mary Kay is also the author of Man Alive!, a Washington Post Notable Book, as well as The Bowl Is Already Broken and The Frequency of Souls. She is the winner of the American Academy's Rosenthal Award and a multiple recipient of the DC Artist Fellowship. Born in Syracuse, raised in Oklahoma City, and educated in Houston and Baltimore, she lives in Washington, DC.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Amy

I recieved this book as a giveaway. A story of early 1900s Russian immigrants seeking a better life in America. Trading one set of hardships for another. While this story takes place generations ago it is easy to see the parallels of life today. As this is not what I would normally pick to read, I w......more

Goodreads review by Annie

Two epiphanies bookend American Ending, by Mary Kay Zuravleff. Near the beginning of the novel, protagonist Yelena realizes that her mother sometimes changes the endings of the Russian tales she relates to her children. The original Russian endings bother Yelena, because they’re so depressing and un......more

Goodreads review by Sue

This book was selected for bookclub in the winter of 2023. It’s set in a coal mining town in the early 1900s with the feisty and very bright Yelena. She’s a young girl who is the oldest daughter of Russian Immigrants born in the US - although she has two sisters who were born in and still live in th......more

Goodreads review by Larkin

A moving picture of a girl’s life as the first natural-born American in her family. Solid characterization and dynamics within the family made the story engaging throughout. The fairy tales in the novel and the cultural differences that come with them were a beautiful way to emphasize the longing fo......more

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List