Outsider looking in on outsiders
By Abigail Deutsch |
October 21, 2012, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IMMIGRATION novels often work like playground swings, pitching characters forward into a new culture even as the old maintains its backward pull. The nostalgic tug of the homeland - Henry Roth's Austria, Jhumpa Lahiri's India - counters the beckoning excitements of the adopted country, creating a tension that keeps the apparatus moving.
Karolina Waclawiak's "How to Get Into the Twin Palms" propels its protagonist in an unexpected direction. Rather than oscillate between her Polish past and American present, Zosia, a 25-year-old immigrant living in Los Angeles, yearns to become something else entirely: Russian. As if giving birth to a new self, she plucks the name Anya out of a baby book. "I am taking off all my American skin," she declares, and means it literally: throughout the book, she shaves, scrapes and even sands her body. Less arduously, she dyes her hair, paints her face and buys new clothes - all with the goal of winning entry into the Twin Palms, an alluring Russian nightclub in her neighborhood.
Just as Anya reinvents herself, Waclawiak's novel (her first) reinvents the immigration story, shaving off some bits, accentuating others and dressing the whole thing up in a fresh outfit. Anya seeks not to break into American culture but to become a different kind of outsider. She lands in California not to fulfill a dream of stardom but because she dreams of nothing in particular: Having lost her interest in seeing all of America, she "just stopped here."
And rather than "pull herself up by her bootstraps" - a feat known to frustrate even the native-born - Anya is tranquilly unemployed, spending her government checks on carrot cake and discounted bras. Waclawiak captures joblessness well: Her narrative unfurls in short, sharp chapters, as though the novel itself refuses to commit to long projects. Without a day job, Anya can devote her energy to wondering which hot dog to buy and how fast her fan would need to spin to detach from the ceiling. And she can become a peculiarly Californian flaneur, coasting up and down the highways.
Anya remains the consummate immigrant, a permanently impermanent resident. Someone else's hair balls and bobby pins linger in her apartment; she lounges by the pool of a motel where she is not a guest. We often catch her staring at strangers, as if becoming a tourist in their lives - moments that transform "Twin Palms" into its own manner of spy novel.
Yet for all its fascination, this book sometimes lacks finish. While the novel's improvisational quality complements the character, it confounds the reader: If Anya is so intent on passing as Russian, why does she quickly tell her Russian beau that she is Polish? Why does she declare her lack of interest in the Twin Palms only to recommit to the idea six pages later? Why does she want to pretend to be Russian at all? Waclawiak offers a quick explanation that fails to justify such a historically loaded gesture, and we close the book thinking - as Anya notes on the first page - "It was a strange choice to decide to pass as a Russian."
Like the nightclub in its title, "Twin Palms" brims with smoke: characters puff cigarettes, eat smoked fish and watch ash fall from nearby forest fires. Anya gets burned both by the man she pursues and by the California sun. At its most illuminating, "How to Get Into the Twin Palms" movingly portrays a protagonist intent on both creating and destroying herself, on burning brightly even as she goes up in smoke.
Karolina Waclawiak's "How to Get Into the Twin Palms" propels its protagonist in an unexpected direction. Rather than oscillate between her Polish past and American present, Zosia, a 25-year-old immigrant living in Los Angeles, yearns to become something else entirely: Russian. As if giving birth to a new self, she plucks the name Anya out of a baby book. "I am taking off all my American skin," she declares, and means it literally: throughout the book, she shaves, scrapes and even sands her body. Less arduously, she dyes her hair, paints her face and buys new clothes - all with the goal of winning entry into the Twin Palms, an alluring Russian nightclub in her neighborhood.
Just as Anya reinvents herself, Waclawiak's novel (her first) reinvents the immigration story, shaving off some bits, accentuating others and dressing the whole thing up in a fresh outfit. Anya seeks not to break into American culture but to become a different kind of outsider. She lands in California not to fulfill a dream of stardom but because she dreams of nothing in particular: Having lost her interest in seeing all of America, she "just stopped here."
And rather than "pull herself up by her bootstraps" - a feat known to frustrate even the native-born - Anya is tranquilly unemployed, spending her government checks on carrot cake and discounted bras. Waclawiak captures joblessness well: Her narrative unfurls in short, sharp chapters, as though the novel itself refuses to commit to long projects. Without a day job, Anya can devote her energy to wondering which hot dog to buy and how fast her fan would need to spin to detach from the ceiling. And she can become a peculiarly Californian flaneur, coasting up and down the highways.
Anya remains the consummate immigrant, a permanently impermanent resident. Someone else's hair balls and bobby pins linger in her apartment; she lounges by the pool of a motel where she is not a guest. We often catch her staring at strangers, as if becoming a tourist in their lives - moments that transform "Twin Palms" into its own manner of spy novel.
Yet for all its fascination, this book sometimes lacks finish. While the novel's improvisational quality complements the character, it confounds the reader: If Anya is so intent on passing as Russian, why does she quickly tell her Russian beau that she is Polish? Why does she declare her lack of interest in the Twin Palms only to recommit to the idea six pages later? Why does she want to pretend to be Russian at all? Waclawiak offers a quick explanation that fails to justify such a historically loaded gesture, and we close the book thinking - as Anya notes on the first page - "It was a strange choice to decide to pass as a Russian."
Like the nightclub in its title, "Twin Palms" brims with smoke: characters puff cigarettes, eat smoked fish and watch ash fall from nearby forest fires. Anya gets burned both by the man she pursues and by the California sun. At its most illuminating, "How to Get Into the Twin Palms" movingly portrays a protagonist intent on both creating and destroying herself, on burning brightly even as she goes up in smoke.
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