{"product_id":"steppe-oksana-vasyakina-hardcover","title":"Steppe -- Oksana Vasyakina, Hardcover","description":"\u003cb\u003eA visceral, stirring novel following a queer literature student traveling across Russia with her estranged father, a long haul truck driver secretly dying of AIDS, from the acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003eWound\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA decade after her father walks out on her family, the narrator of Steppe, now a literature student, decides to spend some time with him on the road as he makes deliveries across the vast plains of Russia. She's attracted and repulsed by his rugged life as a trucker, eager to reckon with the ways he's imprinted on her, to understand the person who made her, to witness their family likenesses. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBut the prematurely aged, drug-ruined man secretly being consumed by AIDS who meets her at the train station has little revelation to offer her yearning heart. As he drives her across a severe landscape in his freight truck, the narrator reflects on her father's role as a small piece of the extensive, violent patriarchal structure of Russian society and the post-Soviet chaos of the 1990s. Always humming in the background, the austere beauty and mercurial nature of the steppe reminds her of the contradictions at the heart of their relationship--both natural and forced; intimate and estranged. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOksana Vasyakina's second novel of aching familial hurt pierces the surface of human relations and reaches into the depths of shame, longing, and grief that lie beneath. In simple, precise prose she paints a vivid portrait of estrangement and situates it in the broader context of her country's attempts to reckon with its troubled history.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Oksana Vasyakina\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Catapult\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/20\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 240\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.25lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781646223077\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 10\/20\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOKSANA VASYAKINA\u003c\/b\u003e is a Russian poet and curator. Her debut poetry collection, \u003ci\u003eWomen's Prose\u003c\/i\u003e, was short-listed for the Andrei Bely Prize in 2016, and her debut novel, \u003ci\u003eWound, \u003c\/i\u003ewon the NOS Prize in 2021. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e ELINA ALTER\u003c\/b\u003e is a writer and translator. Her work appears in \u003ci\u003eThe Los Angeles Review of Books, BOMB, The Paris Review, The New England Review\u003c\/i\u003e, and elsewhere. She is the editor of \u003ci\u003eCircumference\u003c\/i\u003e, a journal of translation and international culture.","brand":"Oksana Vasyakina","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47487977423076,"sku":"9781646223077","price":22.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0611\/9587\/8628\/files\/9781646223077.jpg?v=1768943274","url":"https:\/\/bookandmortar.com\/products\/steppe-oksana-vasyakina-hardcover","provider":"BookandMortar","version":"1.0","type":"link"}