God Lives in St. Petersburg: Short Stories
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

Bissell's collection of short stories set in Central Asia feature Americans emotionally and literally stranded in alien circumstances they struggle to comprehend. These six tales bring culture clashes and complexities to new levels as characters strive to survive in and make sense of seemingly senseless situations. Two journalists in Afghanistan fend off the inevitability of death while in the company of a notorious warlord. A missionary in St. Petersburg attempts to reconcile his homosexuality and infidelity with his faith. A young married couple is ill-equipped to deal with a marital crisis during a dangerous hike in Kazakhstan. The irresponsible son of an American ambassador on a collision course with fate risks his own life and costs his father his job. An environmental biologist is forced to rethink her theory on the diminishment of the Aral Sea. A returning Peace Corps volunteer finds he cannot pick up the pieces with his former girlfriend. Bound by common thematic elements of pathos and confusion, these stories shimmer with rare insight into an ever-mysterious foreign landscape. --Margaret Flanagan Copyright 2005 Booklist

In this sharp, hip collection of stories, Bissell fictionalizes his experiences in Central Asia, which were first aired in his nonfiction debut Chasing the Sea. Bissell has a predilection for school-of-Eggers deadpan irony and pop culture references, but if his knowingness sometimes grates, his witticisms are rarely gratuitous; the conflation of American consumerism with the barrenness of the Central Asian landscape gives these stories a striking immediacy: "Afghan men tended to wear their scarves atop their heads in vaguely muffin-shaped bundles or around their necks with aviator flair.... This was called terrorist style..." "Death Defier" follows a pair of Western journalists as they flee a war-torn Afghan city only to end up in the care of a warlord who dispatches one of them in search of an unlikely folk remedy for the other's malaria. In "Aral," an American scientist investigating the destruction of the Aral Sea is kidnapped by a KGB operative bent on showing the world how pollution has crippled his children and his country. The stunning title story depicts a missionary stationed in Russia who loses his faith as he is overcome by sexual desire. The story's deeply disturbing conclusion is a reminder of the short distance between the help offered by outsiders and the harm they do. Bissell never flinches as he looks straight into the starved hearts of his characters. In these chilling stories of a region ravaged by war, exile and neglect, desperation drives men and women to do the otherwise unthinkable, and no one is quite forgiven for their transgressions. (Jan. 25) Forecast: Booksellers can recommend this to fans of Jonathan Safran Foer and other hipster chroniclers of Americans abroad (including Dave Eggers, natch). (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Bissell (Chasing the Sea) here displays a surprisingly light touch, given that his stories are about death-though not always literally. Journalists in Afghanistan find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time ("Death Defier"), a biologist gets in the way of the political situation in the Aral Sea region ("Aral"), and a cynical young man parties a little too hard in Moscow and kills a man ("The Ambassador's Son"). Sometimes, relationships are irrevocably damaged, as when a husband and wife encounter bandits while hiking in Kazakhstan ("Expensive Trips Nowhere"). In the sobering "God Lives in St. Petersburg," a missionary is compelled to question his vocation when he sees the hopelessness of his Russian English students. These rather gloomy stories are saved from being outright depressing by the author's intellectual distance. In addition, touches of humor will wring a wry smile from most readers, and the foreign locales lend a distinctive flavor. This is a book for jaded literary readers looking for something a bit outlandish. Recommended for larger public libraries.-Amy Ford, St. Mary's Cty. Lib., Lexington Park, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Bissell follows a nonfiction account of his travels in Central Asia (Chasing the Sea, 2003) with this slim but rigorous debut collection of six darkly passionate stories about Americans who have chosen to visit or live in that most difficult part of the world. In "Death Defier," a very ill British correspondent and a healthy American photojournalist become stranded somewhere in Afghanistan. On a hopeless quest for grasses that the local warlord says can cure malaria, the American remembers his haphazard evolution from midwestern nobody to chronicler of death as he heads toward his own fate. While Bissell paints a vivid picture of the Central Asian world, this opening story is primarily a character study, as is the final piece, "Animals in Our Lives," in which the protagonist, having returned from abroad, is unable to find a place for himself in his old life or with the woman he loves. But in most of the tales, the region and its native inhabitants come to the forefront to defeat the generally hapless and morally iffy Americans. A humorless, by-the-books biologist on her way to study the pollution of the "Aral," the sea in Turkistan, finds herself kidnapped by a mysterious Russian she assumes is KGB until he introduces her to his blinded, orphaned children. A trust-fund couple buoying up a failing marriage with "Expensive Trips Nowhere" end up in Kazakhstan, where the husband shows his cowardice and the wife finds herself increasingly drawn to their guide, a veteran of the Afghan war whose knowing disdain for his charges does not rule out sex. "The Ambassador's Son," a degenerate wastrel, finally gets in over his head when he takes on the local degenerates. In the almost Dostoyevskian title story, a missionary teacher who already considers himself corrupted by his affair with a local man faces ultimate moral defeat before his students. Graham and Ernest move over, you've got company. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Bissell's collection of short stories set in Central Asia feature Americans emotionally and literally stranded in alien circumstances they struggle to comprehend. These six tales bring culture clashes and complexities to new levels as characters strive to survive in and make sense of seemingly senseless situations. Two journalists in Afghanistan fend off the inevitability of death while in the company of a notorious warlord. A missionary in St. Petersburg attempts to reconcile his homosexuality and infidelity with his faith. A young married couple is ill-equipped to deal with a marital crisis during a dangerous hike in Kazakhstan. The irresponsible son of an American ambassador on a collision course with fate risks his own life and costs his father his job. An environmental biologist is forced to rethink her theory on the diminishment of the Aral Sea. A returning Peace Corps volunteer finds he cannot pick up the pieces with his former girlfriend. Bound by common thematic elements of pathos and confusion, these stories shimmer with rare insight into an ever-mysterious foreign landscape. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews.

Bissell (Chasing the Sea) here displays a surprisingly light touch, given that his stories are about death-though not always literally. Journalists in Afghanistan find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time ("Death Defier"), a biologist gets in the way of the political situation in the Aral Sea region ("Aral"), and a cynical young man parties a little too hard in Moscow and kills a man ("The Ambassador's Son"). Sometimes, relationships are irrevocably damaged, as when a husband and wife encounter bandits while hiking in Kazakhstan ("Expensive Trips Nowhere"). In the sobering "God Lives in St. Petersburg," a missionary is compelled to question his vocation when he sees the hopelessness of his Russian English students. These rather gloomy stories are saved from being outright depressing by the author's intellectual distance. In addition, touches of humor will wring a wry smile from most readers, and the foreign locales lend a distinctive flavor. This is a book for jaded literary readers looking for something a bit outlandish. Recommended for larger public libraries.-Amy Ford, St. Mary's Cty. Lib., Lexington Park, MD Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

In this sharp, hip collection of stories, Bissell fictionalizes his experiences in Central Asia, which were first aired in his nonfiction debut Chasing the Sea. Bissell has a predilection for school-of-Eggers deadpan irony and pop culture references, but if his knowingness sometimes grates, his witticisms are rarely gratuitous; the conflation of American consumerism with the barrenness of the Central Asian landscape gives these stories a striking immediacy: "Afghan men tended to wear their scarves atop their heads in vaguely muffin-shaped bundles or around their necks with aviator flair.... This was called terrorist style..." "Death Defier" follows a pair of Western journalists as they flee a war-torn Afghan city only to end up in the care of a warlord who dispatches one of them in search of an unlikely folk remedy for the other's malaria. In "Aral," an American scientist investigating the destruction of the Aral Sea is kidnapped by a KGB operative bent on showing the world how pollution has crippled his children and his country. The stunning title story depicts a missionary stationed in Russia who loses his faith as he is overcome by sexual desire. The story's deeply disturbing conclusion is a reminder of the short distance between the help offered by outsiders and the harm they do. Bissell never flinches as he looks straight into the starved hearts of his characters. In these chilling stories of a region ravaged by war, exile and neglect, desperation drives men and women to do the otherwise unthinkable, and no one is quite forgiven for their transgressions. (Jan. 25) Forecast: Booksellers can recommend this to fans of Jonathan Safran Foer and other hipster chroniclers of Americans abroad (including Dave Eggers, natch). Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.