From a critically acclaimed fiction writer comes the moving story of a boy with extraordinary ears who — with the help of a cache of his great-grandmother’s letters — brings healing to a town burdened by the sins of its past. Young Maris has been summoned to his mother’s bedside as she nears the end of her life; she feels she must tell him her version of their family history, the story of his early life, and the ways in which he changed the lives of others. Maris was born with what some might call a blessing and others might deem a curse: his very large, very special ears enable him to hear the secrets of the dead, as well as the memories that haunt his Latvian hometown. Nestled in the woodlands on the banks of the Aiviekste River, their town suffered the ravages of war, then the cold shock of independence. As a boy, Maris found himself heir to an odd assortment of hidden letters; a school project provided the chance to share them, forcing the town to hear the truth from the past and face what it meant for their future. With "luminous writing [and] affection for her characters" (New York Times), Gina Ochsner creates an intimate, hopeful portrait of a fascinating town in all its complications and charm. She shows us how, despite years of distrust, a community can come through love and loss to the joy of understanding — enabled by a great-grandmother’s legacy, a flood, and a boy with very special ears.

The Hidden Letters of Velta B.

Literature & Fiction

Ochsner, Gina

United States

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

FINALIST FOR THE OREGON BOOK AWARDS—KEN KESEY AWARD FOR FICTION “Intimate, vibrant, and richly colored.”—Portland Monthly “[An] extraordinary feat of storytelling . . . A spellbinding novel as tough as it is beautiful.” — Helen Simonson, author of The Summer Before the War “A beautifully spun tale . . . An astonishing alchemy of history, romance, and fable.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review Maris was born knowing things: his very large, very special ears enable him to hear the secrets of the dead, as well as the memories that haunt his Latvian hometown. As a boy, Maris finds himself heir to an odd assortment of hidden letters, letters from which he would weave a story that could finally expose—and maybe even patch—the holes in the fabric of his family and their town. With humor, heart, and her characteristic “luminous writing [and] affection for her characters” (New York Times), Gina Ochsner creates an intimate, hopeful portrait of a fascinating town in all its complications and charm. From the onset of World War II through the cold shock of independence, we see how, despite years of distrust, a community can come through love and loss to the joy of understanding. “A captivating novel of secrets, love, and memory . . . This terrific novel knocked me out.” —Janet Fitch, author of Paint It Black “A gift on par with Joanne Harris’s Chocolat . . . Quirky, ethereal, hilarious, and sorrowful.” —Shelf Awareness

The Hidden Letters Of Velta B.

Harper-perennial

In a crumbling apartment building in post-Soviet Russia, there’s a ghost who won’t keep quiet. Mircha fell from the roof and was never properly buried, so he sticks around to heckle the living: his wife, Azade; Olga, a disillusioned translator/censor for a military newspaper; Yuri, an army veteran who always wears an aviator’s helmet; and Tanya, a student of hope, words, and color. Tanya carries a notebook wherever she goes, recording her dreams of finding love and escaping her job at the All-Russia All-Cosmopolitan Museum, a place that holds a fantastic and terrible collection of art knockoffs created with the materials at hand, from foam to chewing gum, Popsicle sticks to tomato juice. When the museum’s director hears of an American group seeking to fund art in Russia, it looks as if Tanya might get her chance at a better life, if she can only convince them of the collection’s worth. Enlisting the help of her neighbors, Tanya scrambles to save her dreams, and along the way discovers that love may have been waiting in her own courtyard all along.

The Russian Dreambook Of Color And Flight

Gina Ochsner's award-winning, highly acclaimed stories have appeared in such publications as The New Yorker and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. In her eagerly anticipated new collection, Ochsner deftly examines the harrowing moments after a life or love slips away and discovers that the human heart can be large enough for anything. A Russian couple come to accept their infertility by bidding farewell tot he ghosts of the children they never had. A disgruntled husband buys a talking bird that he hopes will restore love to his marriage. Twin sisters learn to prepare bodies for burial in their Hungarian parents' funeral home, but when faced with a death of their own, they must learn to prepare the soul. Glowing with warmth and sparkling with imagination, these stories are rendered with a deep understanding of human resilience as well as an unerring belief in small, daily miracles.

People I Wanted to Be: Stories

In a crumbling apartment building in post-Soviet Russia, there’s a ghost who won’t keep quiet.
Mircha fell from the roof and was never properly buried, so he sticks around to heckle the living: his wife, Azade; Olga, a disillusioned translator/censor for a military newspaper; Yuri, an army veteran who always wears an aviator’s helmet; and Tanya.
Tanya carries a notebook wherever she goes, recording her observations and her dreams of finding love and escaping her job at the All-Russia All-Cosmopolitan Museum, a place which holds a fantastic and terrible collection of art knockoffs created using the tools at hand, from foam to chewing gum, Popsicle sticks to tomato juice. When the museum’s director hears of a mysterious American group seeking to fund art in Russia, it looks like she might get her chance at a better life, if she can only convince them of the collection’s worth. Enlisting the help of Azade, Olga and even Mircha, Tanya scrambles to save her dreams and her neighbors, and along the way discovers that love may have been waiting in her own courtyard all along.
And so in Ochsner's fable-like, magical debut, we see the transcendence of imagination. As Colum McCann has said: "[Ochsner] manages . . . to capture our sundry human moments and make raw and unforgettable music of them."

The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight

These eleven stories take us from the Czech Republic to Alaska, from Siberia to West Texas, as they stake out territories straddling the border between life and death. In the title story the usual thoroughness of an insurance claims investigator spirals into obsession when Howard learns that a beautiful, drowned policyholder was a childhood neighbor he never knew. He is left uncentered, and his wife is convinced that he is having an affair. In "How the Dead Live" Karen keeps her late father's spirit trapped in her home until her newly detected pregnancy drives her thoughts outward and forward. In "Unfinished Business" Ciri's ghost cannot forsake her previous life's routines, or the chance that even in death she might love or be loved by the living.
Gina Ochsner's interests in folklore and myth often suffuse these stories of visitations, crossings, partings, and second chances. Fears and longings, for example, are often projected onto animals such as the earthbound, ice-covered swans of the Siberian tundra in "Sixty-six Degrees North." Likewise, Ochsner's insights into history-burdened contemporary life in Eastern Europe and Russia also filter through. In "Then, Returning" a Lithuanian and a Russian sort body parts and marble fragments in a Vilnius cemetery hit by stray artillery shells. As they work, a group of American genealogy buffs approaches, filled with hope that a day among the gravestones will bring order to their family trees.
In such wildly inventive ways, Gina Ochsner gives us new means to think about how the dead remain among us and how we can find beauty and solace even in graceless times and places.

The Necessary Grace to Fall

Short Stories & Anthologies

Univ of Georgia Pr

The Necessary Grace to Fall: Stories

University of Georgia Press

Gina Ochsner's award-winning, highly acclaimed stories have appeared in such publications as The New Yorker and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. In her eagerly anticipated new collection, Ochsner deftly examines the harrowing moments after a life or love slips away and discovers that the human heart can be large enough for anything. A Russian couple come to accept their infertility by bidding farewell tot he ghosts of the children they never had. A disgruntled husband buys a talking bird that he hopes will restore love to his marriage. Twin sisters learn to prepare bodies for burial in their Hungarian parents' funeral home, but when faced with a death of their own, they must learn to prepare the soul. Glowing with warmth and sparkling with imagination, these stories are rendered with a deep understanding of human resilience as well as an unerring belief in small, daily miracles.

People I Wanted to Be

Portobello Books

The Russian dreambook of colour and flight

Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight

Contemporary

Portobello Books Ltd

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