Memoirs of a Muse

Tanya is a typical teenager living with her bookish professor mother in a cramped Soviet apartment. She is obsessed with Dostoyevksy, and noticing that he always portrays his mistress and muse in his novelsnever his wifeshe determines to become a companion to a great writer. Her opportunity comes when, as a college graduate newly emigrated to America, she attends a Manhattan bookstore reading by Mark Schneider, a Significant New York Novelist. Tanya quickly moves in with Mark, ready to dazzle in bed, to serve and inspire . . . if only he would spend a little more time writing. But as she struggles to better understand her role as Muse, Tanya also learns more than she expected about the destiny she has imagined for herself. A touching and very funny novel in the great tradition of Russian realism,Memoirs of a Museis also a lively meditation on the mysteries and absurdities of artistic inspiration.

Lara Vapnyar emigrated from Russia in 1994. There Are Jews in My House was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and received the National Foundation for Jewish Culture’s prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers. Her work has appeared in The New York Times and The New Yorker, among other publications. She lives on Staten Island with her husband and two children.


From the Hardcover edition.