God Lives in St. Petersburg: and Other Stories

Bissell, who is very young (born in 1974)to be writing short stories with this kind of wisdom, worked as a Peace Corps volunteer near the Aral Sea and has used his experiences in South Central Asia and Eastern Europe, delving into the lives of journalists haunted by demons, searchers, spoiled rich brats, do-gooders, criminals, sociopaths, and a litany of misfits to produce a rare feat of fiction--literary short stories that have the feel of expose. He takes you into the heart of modern day Afghanistan, for example, in his story "Death Defier," where an American journalist, haunted by family demons, appears to be a courageous photographer of truth on one hand and a man with a death wish on the other. In "Aral," his story that more than the others ventures into exposition and polemic, a nihilistic KGB officer lectures an American biologist UN worker about the "fat souls" of Americans who, for all their platitudes, know nothing of real suffering before subjecting the woman to a little trial of her own. In "The Ambassador's Son" a rogue narrates his licentious exploits and the manner in which he corrupts a Christian missionary.Amazingly, these stories can be peeled layer upon layer for their psychological depth while at the same time they percolate with the buzz of the chaos that we read about in the daily newspapers and blogs. A great achievement.

Tom Bissell is fond of sprinkling aphorisms throughout the stories in this fine collection, so let's lay one on him: Only a young man with his entire life stretched out before him could afford to be so pessimistic about life's possibilities.Granted, he's writing about places it's easy to be pessimistic about, god-forsaken Central Asian Republics spawned by the collapse of the Soviet Empire, places that are a "combo of Soviet paranoia and Muslim xenophobia" as one character puts it. Five of the collection's six stories follow this pattern: take a (young) American; drop him or her into a central Asian country; stir; chronicle the resulting disaster.The first story, Death Defier, is probably the best. A free-lance American photographer gets caught in a difficult situation in Afghanistan while trying to help a British reporter felled by a virulent strain of malaria. The story poses an interesting question: can you dive so deeply into the mechanics and aesthetics of war that you become immune to death-terror? Bissell grapples honorably with the complex sensibility of war correspondents, people who are voyeuristic and deeply engaged, often at the same time. Aral is about Amanda, an American biologist sent by the United Nations to study the shrinking Aral Sea (a hall of fame ecological screw-up). Amanda consistently misreads the intent of the people around her. She displays that combustible American mix of idealism, aggressiveness and ignorance of the local culture that's served us so well in Vietnam and Iraq.Expensive Trips Nowhere and The Ambassador's Son are ugly American stories. In an Author's Note, Bissell acknowledges his debt to Hemingway's The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber for Expensive Trips Nowhere, which is about courage or the lack thereof on the steppes of Kazakhstan. The Ambassador's Son is about what you'd get if you dropped the Jay McInerney of Bright Lights, Big City into the capital of Tashkent. It should be noted that Bissell writes well about sex, giving it neither more nor less significance than the situation he's describing merits. The final story, Animals in Our Lives, is the only one set in America. Franklin, a recently returned expat English teacher, and Elizabeth, a med student, spend an afternoon at the zoo and experience the moment when it comes clear they don't have a future with each other. It's a sensitive rendering of the kinds of pain your intellect can't protect you from.The title story, which won a Pushcart Prize, is about Timothy, a missionary in Samarkand whose faith gets subverted by physical urges. Bissell gets the succumbing to temptation part just right, along with the heartbreaking juxtaposition of sex with hope that pervades the world's downtrodden places. What's missing is a visceral sense of the struggle to hold on to God. God may not live in St Petersburg, but Dostoievksi did, and the master understood that sin gains heft through the hubris of the sinner. Something enormous was at stake for Dostoievski's spiritual criminals; they pitched themselves willingly on to the pyre, inviting and accepting oblivion for their defiance. Timothy settles for the tiny oblivion of orgasm, then sits in a fug of post-coital remorse waiting for God to ring him up. He's simply not a big enough person to carry his part of the argument, so the story falls short of the tragic dimension it tries to achieve.There's a lot to like about Bissell as a writer. He's willing to engage with far-off, difficult cultures, and willing to wrestle with big ideas like death and sin. He writes a prose that's both erudite and plainspoken, which is hard to do. He can be both trenchant and expansive in his observations, often in the same well-turned phrase. His efforts to describe the ways in which the personal and political infuse and alter one another takes him into territory mined so productively by Graham Greene. While each of the individual stories may not be perfectly realized, it feels like there's something at stake here, maybe something important.He's an author work rooting for, and I'd definitely buy his next book.

It's possible I'm biased because of my interest in Central Asia. I'm not sure how this book would be received by someone with no interest in the region, but I suspect it would still be a great read.For me, this was the first book in a long time that brought out the 'just a few more pages' type of mentality that keeps you reading until the wee hours of the morning (it's a short book though, so start it early in the day so you don't stay up too late!).One of the greatest parts of this is how each story seems to speak to a different part of me.I really enjoyed it. And with the used prices below a dollar, I think you'd be missing out not to pick it up.

I enjoyed all of the stories a lot except for the last one set in the US instead of abroad. The last one was just okay. Still reccomend the book as a whole.

I just adore the honest, accessible and humorous writing style of Tom Bissell, and the subjects that he chooses to write about are highly interesting for the most part. His more exotic stories of travels abroad are the jems of this collection.

This book touches on a subject of life in the former soviet republics in asia and Afghanistan. It is predictabely grim, yet author tries to make the stories unique and interesting to read. I liked the stories for their exposition of desperation in peoples lives. Having been born in the former soviet union myself I can attest to how alien that world is. There a note in the book that indeed much has happened since the stories were written and it should be noted that oil wealth has changed the situation for very few people but has transformed the main capitals.