Mark Girshin

Brighton Beach: Novel Mark Girshin

The Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn is populated by what might be called external emigrants, the people who in emigrating have changed nothing about their lives but their location. Brighton Beach, the novel about this Jewish immigrant community, is a satiric look at this island of Russian life in New York City. Levine, a well-known Odessa writer, arrives in New York and peddles his single book stories under several titles. There is also Pishonik, who runs the second-hand store and has a thriving under-the-counter business in stolen jewelry, just as in Odessa hed dealt in produce, a taxi driver who sells drugs on the side and dreams of opening a luncheonette. And Seva, who works odd jobs and dreams of buying a taxi. Theres even a schoolboy with his own get-rich-quick mail-order scam. And the intellectuals: Volodya, sets about beginning a new, healthier life as a housepainter; Aaron, who was a teacher in Odessa, opens a leather-goods factory and tries to run it, but thwarted at every turn. And Marat, a would-be writer living on welfare and too naïve to understand the venality which surrounds him, eventually gives the writer Levine his comeuppance. This novel gives the reader a colorful picture of this thriving community on the sultry summer streets of Brooklyn.