My 20+ Years InВ America. BasedВ on aВ true story

Tatiana Shymanova

Tatiana Shymanova’s novel My 20+ Years In America includes moving, sometimes joyous, sometimes harrowing stories of her childhood and coming of age in Siberia and Ukraine. Follow her dedication to studying and teaching piano, growing up and falling in love, her marriage and children, and her journey to the United States, in which a fateful decision changed her and her younger son’s lives forever…

My 20+ Years InВ America

BasedВ on aВ true story

Tatiana Shymanova

© Tatiana Shymanova, 2016

© Esfera, illustrations, 2016

ISBNВ 978-5-4474-3844-9

Created with intellectual publishing system Ridero

My 20+ Years InВ America

In the West, today, the popular imagination has bent Eastern Europe into a barbarous, backwards swath of contested land forever haunted by the histories of the Soviet Bloc. But these geographies hold homes, hold loves, hold lives; no matter the pain or torments, countries like Ukraine and Siberia were and are the scenes of childhood— replete with all the joys and grief of existence itself. Tatyana Shimanova’s autobiographical novel, My 20+ Years In America, paints this dynamic picture, placing her homeland front and center and subjecting it to both leveled criticism and beautiful nostalgia, creating a melancholic and moving narrative out of her own struggles and successes.

My 20+ Years In America trembles with arresting prose, thoughtful meditations, and a universality essential to any and all autobiographies. The specificities of time and place allow for lush detail and a poetic verisimilitude, but the essence of Ms. Shimanova’s story is as primal as any bildungsroman— from Goethe to Sedaris. My 20+ Years In America, however, with its pertinence to the current global stage, functions just as well as a contemporary allegory, as a humanizing symbol of the ontology of the late 20

century, the intertwining narratives and circumstances ofВ the marginalized that shaped our society today.

But, throughout it all, Ms. Shimanova stays true to herself, true to her own truth, if you will. Beyond the evocativeness of the writing and the nuance of the characters, the clear honesty of the hand penning these pages shines through, underpins every word, like confession, or salvation. This is the true task of the autobiographer— and Tatyana Shimanova has achieved this arduous task with flying colors.

    – Charles Asher, PBK Reviews

Clarion Rewiew

Memoirs dealing with immigration and the prevailing belief that people can better their lives and the lives of their children are often sentimental and hold the sympathy of the reader with vivid, emotional descriptions of events. However, Tatyana Shimanova’s writing is spare, mirroring the physical coldness of her surroundings growing up in Siberia and the Ukraine as well as the cold shoulder she encounters when she finally reaches America.

My 20+ Years InВ AmericaВ begins inВ present-day America with Tonya (aВ character based onВ the author) driving toВ work and remembering her sister and mother. The story flashes back and forth from past toВ present without purpose, making it difficult toВ follow at times. When the narrator digs into an event or aВ relationship, however, readers will be invested. Unfortunately, the challenge ofВ maintaining that investment is not alwaysВ met.

Tonya’s childhood and adolescence are explained quickly at the beginning of the book; by page twenty-seven, she is already leaving for college. Readers are given only a cursory view of the incredible pain and grief that have shaped Tonya’s young life. As Tonya ages and she navigates love, career, marriage, and motherhood in a climate of political and economic hardship, the book’s pace changes, and the quality of the narrative voice improves. Tonya struggles between her need for help and the pride that keeps her from asking for it. Even when her son is in the hospital, she struggles to ask a doctor for help. That pride may explai