Something Unbelievable

With “Something Unbelievable,” Kuznetsova movingly makes a case for the significance of the everyday. The book, Kuznetsova’s second (after “Oksana, Behave”), is particularly poignant, especially during our present pandemic. It calls attention to the fact that human beings living through extraordinary circumstances are still, well, human beings… “Something Unbelievable” seems to say that the everyday matters — how unspectacular moments can transcend their confines, how miraculous the ordinary can be.” —The New York Times

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“Something Unbelievable gives you things hilarious, things heartbreaking, things gorgeous and perfect and irresistible on every page. This novel crosses generations, oceans, and empires but never misses a step. It is one more testament to Maria Kuznetsova’s extraordinary talent. You’ll read it hardly believing such a good book could be—yet here it is in your hands! Believe!”

—Julia Phillips, author of National Book Award Finalist Disappearing Earth

An overwhelmed new mom asks to hear her grandmother’s story of her family’s desperate escape from the Nazis, discovering unexpected parallels to her own life in America in this sharp, heartfelt novel.

Larissa is a stubborn, brutally honest woman in her eighties, tired of her home in Kiev, Ukraine–tired of everything in life, really, except for her beloved granddaughter, Natasha. Natasha is tired as well, but that’s because she just had a baby, and she’s struggling to balance her roles as a new mother, a wife, an actress (or she used to be one, anyway), and a host to her husband’s slacker best friend, Stas, who has been staying with them in their cramped one-bedroom apartment in upper Manhattan.

When Natasha asks Larissa to tell the story of her family’s Soviet wartime escape from the Nazis in Kiev, she reluctantly agrees. Perhaps Natasha is just looking for distraction from her own life, but Larissa is desperate to make her happy, even though telling the story makes her heart ache. Larissa recounts the nearly three-year period when she fled with her self-absorbed sister, parents, and grandmother to a factory town in the Ural Mountains where they faced starvation, a cholera outbreak, and a tragic suicide, and where she found herself torn in her affections for two brothers from a wealthy family. But neither Larissa nor Natasha can anticipate how loudly these lessons of the past will echo in their present moments.

Navigating between Larissa and Natasha’s perspectives, then and now, Something Unbelievable explores with piercing wit and tender feeling just how much our circumstances shape our lives and what we pass on to the younger generations, willingly or not.

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INTERVIEWS AND PRESS

Selected Press:
And Now, a Case for the Ordinary, The New York Times
The Tradition of Storytelling in Something Unbelievable, Ploughshares
Kuznetsova’s New Novel is ‘Something Unbelievable,’ The Moscow Times
The Best New Books To Read This April, Bustle
5 New Books to Read in April, AV Club
8 Jewish Books We Can’t Wait to Read This April, Alma 10 Most-Anticipated Books of April, Paperback Paris
9 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in April, PureWow

Interviews:
Immigrants Behaving Badly: Maria Kuznetsova and Sanjena Sathian in Conversation, The Millions

Conversation about babies, romcom, and historical research with Megan Cummins, Full Stop

“Passing Down Family Stories”: Interview with Adam Sockel for the Professional Book Nerds Podcast

“Pass it On”: Interview with Alex Madison for Bookforum

Interview about art and artifice, not having a moral, and more with Rob Cline for The Gazette

Conversation about motherhood, craft lessons, point-of-view and more with my classmate Sadie Hoagland in Necessary Fiction

An interview about things I’d like to find and hide with the Under Cover Book Club

PRAISE FOR Something Unbelievable

“Kuznetsova follows up her dazzling debut, Oksana, Behave!, with another lively tale of a grandmother and her granddaughter. . . . An introspective look at the stages of life and what means the most at each phase, Kuznetsova's second outing is an emotional powerhouse.” —Booklist (starred review)

“A portrait of family love in all its variations . . . compelling.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A moving intergenerational story with an unforgettable wartime narrative steeped in literature.” —Library Journal

“Something Unbelievable is a high-wire feat of imagination and heart, told by two unforgettable women. It deftly chronicles the blurry days of new motherhood, the way our family stories echo across generations, and the messy power of matrilineal bonds with wisdom and tenderness and hard-won humor. I loved it.” —Julie Buntin, author of Marlena

“Something Unbelievable is fresh, funny, and filled with messy family dynamics. What a delightful novel.” —Diksha Basu, author of The Windfall and Destination Wedding

“From the very first page, Kuznetsova had me laughing out loud at eighty-something Larissa’s acerbic, delicious wit, which rendered the retelling of her family’s suffering during World War II even more devastating.” —Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue