Skilled author challenges his readers

Most fiction can be enjoyed alone but some works, like Leonid Tsypkin's “The Bridge Over the Neroch” and other works are best read with some expert guidance.

That's because Tsypkin's work (according to the preface) is set at “the beginning of a huge Jewish emigration that began in the mid-seventies.” This is a “specific historical context that has almost faded from memory.” Having a stronger sense of historical context would help readers better appreciate Tsypkin's style.

The writing in these two novellas and five short stories is beautiful, though difficult. In the first novella, the main characters are unnamed and the story moves between the present, future and past, and blends reality with the narrator's imagination.

While this makes for a confusing read, one can't help but think this structure is on purpose. After all, the short fiction at the end of the book is quite accessible. Tsypkin is a master of a tight full-circle, meaning he might begin a paragraph focusing on one small topic (for example, how a character kills a cockroach), then widen the lens to show more about the character, then move wider still to tell us what is going on in the neighborhood, then carefully zoom back down to where we began.

Tsypkin also mixes memory with the present, making for some heartbreaking passages:

“Their building was on fire and they came to us - each of them with a small suitcase in hand. At their house they had always set the table in the old fashioned way: next to each plate lay a starched, white serviette in a silver ring inlaid with the family's initials.

The third day of the war was coming to a close.”

This is a beautifully-written collection that will hopefully encourage readers to learn more about Russian history - or find a friend who already knows it.