It is 1998. The old Soviet Union is dead, and the new Russia is awash in corruption and despair. Manya and Yuri Zalinikov, secular Jews -- he, a gifted mathematician recently dismissed from the Academy; she, a talented concert pianist -- sell black market electronics in a market stall, until threatened with a gun by a mafioso in search of protection money. Yuri sinks into a Chekhovian melancholy, emerging to announce that he wants to "live as a Jew" in Israel. Manya and their daughter, Galina, are desolate, asking, "How does one do that, and why?"
And thus begins their odyssey -- part tragedy, part comedy, always surprising. Struggling against loneliness, language, and danger, in a place Manya calls "more cousin's club than country," Yuri finds a Talmudic teacher equally addicted to religion and luxury; Manya finds a job playing the piano at The White Nights supper club, owned by a wealthy, flamboyant Russian with a murky history, who offers lust disguised as love. Galina, enrolled at Hebrew University, finds dance clubs and pizza emporiums and a string of young men, one of whom Manya hopes will save her from the Israeli Army by marrying her.
Against a potpourri of marriage wigs, matchmaking television shows, disastrous investment schemes, and a suicide bombing, the Zalinikovs confront the thin line between religious faith and skepticism, as they try to answer: What does it mean to be fully human, what does it mean to be Jewish? And what role in all of this does the mazel gene play?
BUY LINKS: Amazon, Aubade Publishing
Rochelle, who describes language and writing as her “oxygen,” has earned numerous short story literary awards, including The Katherine Anne Porter Prize; Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards and Fellowships; The Ragdale Foundation Fellowships; The Faulkner Society Gold Medal in Novel; The Gival Press 2017 Short Story Competition; Finalist, Glimmer Train’s Emerging Writers; and The Salamander Second Prize in Short Story. In addition, Rochelle’s short stories have earned nominations for The Best American Short Stories and The PushCart Press Prize.
As early as grade school, a ten year-old Rochelle knew that some day she would write a novel. Eight decades later, with the release of Sadie in Love, that dream has come true.
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