Remember this, Lenny; develop a sense of nostalgia for something, or you’ll never figure out what’s important.
As someone who left the country of his birth (the USSR) as a young boy, I am always nostalgic for something, without quite knowing what. I live blocks away from the high school that both I and Lenny Abramov attended, and every time I pass its front entrance I am filled with a flood of pleasant nostalgia. And yet, like most high schools, it wasn’t a particularly pleasant place overall. Friendship, along with romantic love, is one of the themes of this book, but it wasn’t until the pandemic year of 2020 when I began to reevaluate the utility of nostalgia, which led me to write Our Country Friends, a novel in which the nostalgia of friendship gives way to new insights, fresh romantic sparks and memories of old betrayals. I think every book I’ve ever written or will ever write will wrestle with the topic of how we see the past and which lies we tell ourselves about our personal histories in order survive the present.
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