Vera is sure Russian summer camp will be the one place she can fit in, but camp is far from what she imagined, and nothing could prepare her for all the drama, endless Russian history lessons, and outhouses straight out of nightmares.

Anya, embarrassed by her Russian immigrant family and self-conscious about her body, has given up on fitting in at school but falling down a well and making friends with the ghost there just may be worse.

While fifteen-year-old Russian-Jewish immigrant Alyssa tries desperately to cope with her mother's increasingly out-of-control alcoholism by covering for her and pretending things are normal, her best friend Lana attempts to fit in with the popular crowd at their high school.

Keith Gessen was nearing forty and hadn't given much thought to the idea of being a father. He assumed he would have kids, but couldn't imagine what it would be like to be a parent, or what kind of parent he would be. Then, one Tuesday night in early June, the distant idea of fatherhood came careening into view: Raffi was born, a child as real and complex and demanding of his parents' energy as he was singularly magical. Fatherhood is another country:...