Good Citizens Need Not Fear: Stories

by Maria Reva

A brilliant and bitingly funny collection of stories united around a single crumbling apartment building in Ukraine.

A bureaucratic glitch omits an entire building, along with its residents, from municipal records. So begins Reva's "darkly hilarious" (Anthony Doerr) intertwined narratives, nine stories that span the chaotic years leading up to and immediately following the fall of the Soviet Union. But even as the benighted denizens of 1933 Ivansk Street weather the official neglect of the increasingly powerless authorities, they devise ingenious ways to survive.

In "Bone Music," an agoraphobic recluse survives by selling contraband LPs, mapping the vinyl grooves of illegal Western records into stolen X-ray film. A delusional secret service agent in "Letter of Apology" becomes convinced he's being covertly recruited to guard Lenin's tomb, just as his parents, not seen since he was a small child, supposedly were. Weaving the narratives together is the unforgettable, chameleon-like Zaya: a cleft-lipped orphan in "Little Rabbit," a beauty-pageant crasher in "Miss USSR," a sadist-for-hire to the Eastern Bloc's newly minted oligarchs in "Homecoming."

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Ukraine, Russia, Book Club, Audiobook

212 pages, Hardcover

First published March 10, 2020

About the author

MARIA REVA was born in Ukraine and grew up in Canada. She holds an MFA from the Michener Center at the University of Texas. Her fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, McSweeney's, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere, and has won a National Magazine Award. She also works as an opera librettist.

Reviews

[Mohammad Hrabal · Rating 4 out of 5]

هنگام خواندن این کتاب یاد کتاب " تزار عشق و تکنو" از "آنتونی مارا" افتادم. حس کردم اشتراکات یا شباهت‌هایی با هم دارند یا نویسنده از مارا تاثیر گرفته است.
​۱۴۰۴/۰۱/۱۲

[nastya · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm writing this review having just finished the "before the fall" part of this book. While reading this debut by a Candian-Ukrainian Maria Reva, I kept wondering why she chose this topic. We are of the same age, lived a very different lives, yet why the topic of the absurdity of late stage ussr? This all feels so far removed, and a little lifeless. And I mean makes a lot of sense to me, since Reva did not live this, but why's the choice then? Why interest in interrogating that part of history, what can you even add? Why not dig deeper or shallower? Or maybe this is the only topic publishing house wanted from you? (I understand that she first published a lot of these stories in different magazines)

Reva is smart, but to what end here? This feels so limp compared to the real acidity and passion of Reva's Endling. But that book will come later, after the seismic change of the last 4 years. I mean I changed a lot and my levels of acidity had, so I assume Reva also changed so much. I read her interview from the beginning of 2022 where she was still expecting the world to be more just, a better place. This is nowhere to be seen by the time she published Endling though. So anyway, I have the part "after the fall" yet to read, the history I have some connection to, so we'll see if my opinion changes. But Reva is the writer whose development I will be following!

Also this reminded me a little of Tokarczuk's Flights and something of Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo–both books I found deflated and flaccid. So far this lacks teeth and specificity–both things I need from writers who pick up this topic for it to be a worthwhile read.

Update after finishing the second part: once again, just like with Endling, Reva's writing gets stronger in the second part, what a rare gift she has. This is a whimsical book, don't go into it in search of realism. A book filled with melancholy. Once again, Reva somehow manages to win me over. I think it is mostly because of Zaya–the main character of 3 of the interlinked stories, she is the heart of the dreary world in this book (late Soviet Ukraine and the poor beaten Ukraine of the 90s) and, I suppose if we start looking for metaphors, which I don't particularly care to do here, is a bruised hope? You can read her story as sentimental, and you would be right, but also somehow I found it hopeful.

[Briar's Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good Citizens Need Not Fear by Maria Reva is a unique read with overlapping stories.

I thought the first half of this book was insanely good. I was over the moon, ready to post to all of my social media for everyone to rush out and get this book. Then the second half of the book hit and... I wasn't as interested. The dark humour was awesome and the plot was going so good, but then the second half of the book just kind of happened. It didn't pull my attention and slowed down a lot. I wanted more out of this book. All of these overlapping and intertwining stories seemed like it was going to go down an epic path and then it just... happened. It was there and that was it. There wasn't much substance to the second half of the book nor was there any theme or message. It just exists.

It felt like a good contemporary book for someone seeking something different. It's general fiction with different stories that all exist in the same world.

If you want books that centre around politics and interesting dynamics then this book is for you!

Three out of five stars.

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

[Morgan McComb · Rating 5 out of 5]

1933 Ivansk Street doesn't exist--except for the fact that it does, and it houses a cast of characters as diverse as a disgraced poet, a recluse with an illicit record business, a canning employee tasked with making a triangular vegetable, and, at one point, even a mummified saint. Written with a wry, tongue-in-cheek criticism of Soviet government and politics, Reva's collection is both wholly bizarre and devastatingly authentic. Reva's collection of stories begin in isolation with only the building connecting these characters living in Ukraine in the build-up to and fall of the Soviet Union, but as it progresses, each story connects like tributaries to the Mississippi River, creating a tour de force of storytelling that will carry you away.

[TraceyL · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this book. A bunch of people living in the same building in the USSR who have overlapping storylines. It started off strong and had a bit of dark humor to it. The other stories all ended flat. I didn't walk away with any real message. I wanted more.

[Sarah-Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Julien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Citizens Need Not Fear is an absolutely fantastic collection of short stories set in and around a tenement building in Ukraine shortly before and just after the fall of the USSR. It's at turns heartbreaking and darkly humorous, with a touch of surreal beauty. I love that the characters show up over multiple stories and through different time periods, interconnected, but never quite part of a single narrative. It's also fascinating to see how they grow and change and what they have to do to survive in a crumbling infrastructure. I can't recommend this highly enough for anyone interested in the time period, or just well written shorts stories. Warning: You may get attached to these ordinary people in these seemingly outlandish situations.

FTC disclosure: I received this book from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I discovered this short story collection through reading “Letter of Apology” in the The Best American Short Stories 2019, where it was my favorite of the collection, with its almost absurdist dark humor juxtaposed with sympathetic and believable characters. So I was excited to learn that it was part of a linked collection of short stories, set in Ukraine in the 1980s and 90s, about half before and half after the fall of the Soviet Union.

And it’s a good collection, though I think not a great one. Two other stories, “Bone Music” and “Miss USSR” also hit high notes with their combination of dark humor, a decaying but not toothless Soviet bureaucracy, and characters building meaningful relationships under difficult circumstances. The other six stories in the collection did less for me. Some seemed to be no more than catalogs of one bad thing after another without the humor or human connection to bring them to life, while others just made less sense to me. I enjoy the extent to which the stories are linked, though. Several characters—Milena, Zaya, Konstantyn, and Mikhail—appear repeatedly, and it was fun to drop in on them at different points in their journeys while getting some actual closure on all of their stories at the end. I was probably most interested in Milena, a major character in three of the stories although none of them are told from her perspective.

Overall, a good collection though not one I’d go out of my way to recommend. At best it’s great and at worst it’s still a quick read.

[Heather Forsyth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I rarely write reviews, but I feel as though I must for this one. I loved that each story was somehow linked to the others, and it made me feel as though there were little details that I may have missed, which I will hopefully pick up on during a re-read. All of the stories were so charming, with these less than perfect but so loveable characters. The stories made me want to look for more stories about Soviet Ukraine, and the ways people tried to survive the political climate. The characters represented what I can only imagine as real people trying to make ends meet while experiencing the very real relationship dramas that many experience, even now. Reva writes with a sense of dry humor and almost a whimsical narrative in places, which I greatly appreciated. All in all, this was a wonderful read, and I highly recommend it.

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 5 out of 5]

via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
'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 collection! 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

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

After being wowed by Reva’s debut novel, the currently Booker longlisted Endling (hopefully to be shortlisted), I wanted to check out this, her first book, a collection of linked short stories. I’m glad I did. This is a solid collection with several stories that are truly outstanding and memorable. The stories are as quirky and original as her novel and equally entertaining. If you are a fan of Endling I doubt you will be disappointed.

[Anthony Daddeo · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the linked stored of Good Citizens Need Not Fear you'll find a Beach Boys album recorded onto an x-ray of pneumonia infected lungs, a mummified saint on display in a delicatessen case, and a number of other ingeniously crafted artifacts so perfectly strange that it becomes impossible to determine if they are pulled from history or flawlessly delivered absurdities.

These colorful objects stand in sharp contrast to the bleak society they inhabit: a remote city in Ukraine in the years just before and after the fall of the Soviet Union. Frustration and paranoia are the bread and butter of a people whose lives have been governed by a sprawling bureaucracy that has spread its nightmarish illogic into all aspects of the life.

The citizens, despite their dismal circumstances, are teeming with life—ambiguous friendships emerge through schemes to make money on the black-market, a town celebrates when a beauty pageant contestant spits in the face of a judge. Fallible and disoriented as they are, the characters display resiliency as they clumsily attempt to exercise sovereignty in the grips of poverty and a dysfunctional system.

The good citizens suggest that even in less than ideal conditions, we can still define our lives through the meaning we give, relationships we keep, and choices we make.

[Blair]

Read the stories in Part One ('Novostroïka', 'Little Rabbit', 'Letter of Apology', 'Bone Music' and 'Miss USSR'). I liked them, but I didn't feel gripped or moved, and ran out of interest in continuing. Crucially, I didn't care for Zaya – 'Little Rabbit' and 'Miss USSR', my least favourites, centre on her – and a scan of the rest of the stories confirms her character is a strong connecting thread.

Review copy via Edelweiss.

[Kim Lockhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories which all connect and eventually converge. Cleverly written, the author coats the more difficult aspects of Ukrainian/Russian life with a thick coat of humor. And it works. This probably appeals more to Russophiles like me, but I found it incredibly satisfying to read.

[Lata · Rating 2 out of 5]

Using an apartment building and loosely connected stories of people living there, the author has several interesting ideas at work about the arbitrary and oppressive systems and bureaucracies at play and their effects on people in pre- and post-Wall Soviet life. The execution, however, lacks coherence, leaving me putting this book down more than I was picking it up.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[راحله پورآذر]

فکر نکن.
‏اگر فکر می‌کنی، حرف نزن.
‏اگر فکر می‌کنی و حرف می‌زنی، ننویس.
‏اگر فکر می‌کنی، حرف می‌زنی و می‌نویسی، امضا نکن.
‏اگر فکر می‌کنی، حرف می‌زنی، می‌نویسی و امضا می‌کنی، تعجب نکن.

داستان‌های تلخ و واقعی و نزدیک معاصر از نویسنده‌ی اوکراینی. مجموعه داستان به هم پیوسته که نیمه‌ی اولش جذاب‌تر و منسجم‌تر بود.

[Varsha Ravi · Rating 3 out of 5]

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. The collection felt reminiscent of collections like Snow In May by Kseniya Melnik and Anthony Marra's The Tsar of Love and Techno. However, I did prefer the other two to this one. Marra's collection had more complexity, nuance and depth in its characters and their circumstances, while this read a little more light-hearted and forgettable. Melnik's collection, on the other hand, was more sweeping in its scope as it covers nearly a century under Soviet rule, while this is more insular and domestic in it's setting and storytelling. There were also certain themes that repeated themselves in different stories making it a tad predictable. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this collection and found it entertaining whilst reading. The writing is simple, playful and laced with dark humour. I found Bone Music, Letter of Apology, Lucky Toss and Roach Brooch, particularly memorable in its outlandishness and in the authenticity of its characters. It's one I'd recommend on the whole, but probably not one to rush and buy.

[Nicole Wheeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

For fans of the magical realism bordering on horror à la Carmen Maria Machado and the bittersweet absurdism of Etgar Keret and Gary Shteyngart. The stories in this collection are linked, but not in an obnoxious way, and leave you truly wondering where each character ended up.

[Story · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interlinked short stories of life in the USSR before and after the fall, each one bitingly sharp and inky-dark in its humour.

[Veronika · Rating 4 out of 5]

engaging, disturbing and borderline unreal stories about life at a ukrainian village around the end of ussr.

I enjoyed the collection, found myself reading some phrases in ukrainian and hoping this is not how foreigners imagine modern ukraine

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 5 out of 5]

довольно ядовитая абсурдистская антисоветская сатира, очень напоминающая раннего Сондерза. все рассказы причудливо взаимосвязаны, образуя единую жутковатую ткань, в которую все мы когда-то были обернуты (а многие и посейчас). хотя в смысле жанра это, конечно, вполне постмодернистский ветвящийся и переплетенный роман, а слово "рассказы" зачем-то написано только на обложке. но вся книжка одновременно трагическая (ну ещё бы) и очень смешная, - и да, гораздо, гораздо круче как Пелевина, так и Сорокина

[Taylor Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The statue of Grandfather Lenin, just like the one in Moscow, 900 kilometers away, squinted into the smoggy distance…”

The opening words of Maria Reva’s GOOD CITIZENS NEED NOT FEAR immediately signal what it’s about through the image of a selfsame figure, serving both as a reminder of the perceived identical landscapes across the Soviet years and as a “model" citizen in the truest sense of the term. The characters in this novel (despite its pretense as a book of short stories, the intricately interconnected narratives really do deserve the moniker) face the manifold tropes associated with Soviet life and literature, from the enterprise of creating and selling illegal bone records to a fresh take on the trope of the Soviet apartment building mishap. The perceived flattening of life before the fall is tested through vibrant characters asserting themselves amidst a bleak backdrop, while after the fall, the stories reveal how pulling the rug out from under such a world causes the whole thing to collapse. If the first part of the book shows citizens manipulating a lifeless landscape, the latter half of the book illustrates a grotesque afterlife, an undead city full of the ghosts of the past in the forms of the teeth of a saint, insect larvae, and graves swallowing people whole.

Reva’s masterful work is a delightful read from start to finish, appealing both to readers familiar with her various topics from censorship to Chernobyl tourism in (post-)Soviet reality as well as to anyone who enjoys tightly bound narratives teeming with humor and wit, as well as the air of desperation as characters inquire if “as soon as you want something, you lack it; and if you do get it, it can easily be taken away."

[Denver Public Library · Rating 5 out of 5]

Officially, the building at 1933 Ivansk Street does not exist, but thankfully, author Reva makes it and its inhabitants come alive in a series of short interrelated stories that are funny and wistful, and completely capture the in-between feeling of living in a post–Soviet industrial complex world. All the characters in Good Citizens Need Not Fear are resourceful misfits who find ways to navigate an unfair and bureaucratic world. The most memorable character is Zaya, who is left at an orphanage and whose cleft lip and shaved head make her the ultimate badass-hero — she reappears as a beauty pageant contestant and later as a torturer in an orphanage reenactment scene. My favorite story is "Letter of Apology," in which a reclusive poet and his wife receive a visit from a government official sent to extort a potentially dissenting joke the poet made. Fans of Gary Shteyngart will delight in Maria Reva's stories.

[Lydia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Centred around the apartment building 1933 Ivansk Street, a location of debatable existence, the stories follow the assorted inhabitants lives under Soviet and later Russian rule. They suffer, survive and find joy in surprising places.

As always with short story collections, I found myself enraptured by some and let down by others.

The truly standout story was that of the agoraphobic woman producing bootleg records from x rays. Her struggle to trust the new woman in her life, and fear of betrayal, that gradually morphed into friendship and love, only to be stripped away was heart wrenching. In general the stories based around the older women were more standout to me than the rest- probably because they weren’t about motherhood and instead focused on different vices and struggles of each individual.

Another positive of this short story collection is the surreal humour - giant cockroaches anyone?

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

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...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.

[Ray Sinclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes hilarious, sometimes horrifying, always affecting -- these good citizen characters deal with the effects of failed governments in Ukraine. Whether before (first stories) or after (later stories) the fall of the USSR, they await the likely collapse of their shared high-rise slum while creatively cobbling together ways to survive another day -- brilliant citizens against the human follies of the totalitarian state. Made me think about what it means to embrace the choices being human gives me.

[Penny (Literary Hoarders) · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I believe How to Pronounce Knife is a much stronger collection of stories, these linked ones are humorous and quirky and in terms of the Giller Longlist, I suppose I wouldn't be too disappointed if they appeared on it. However, I'm anticipating perhaps stronger contenders as my reading continues.
(#ShadowGiller)

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a bizarre, darkly funny, compelling group of short stories mostly following the inhabitants of an apartment block in Ukraine before and after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Characters and situations appear and then reappear. Some stories are touching, but in a darkly humorous way, as we watch them trying to cope (and not terribly well) with the ghastly situations they find themselves in.
A very, very good read.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant book of interlinked short stories, reads like a classic Russian satire. Can’t recommend enough!