Frederic Petrovsky — Author of The Immigrant

The Immigrant is a vivid, breathtaking, and uplifting tale of tragedy, triumph, and the struggle to discover what matters most. The year is 1920, and a teenage Russian boy named Lev has just witnessed his entire world go up in flames. His parents killed in a horrific blaze, Lev, homeless and alone, finds himself joining up with a strange traveling circus. He sets off on a dark journey across a bleak landscape of corruption and persecution. Facing violent racists, unscrupulous conmen, seedy thugs, and deadly Russian police, Lev’s travels take him across the ocean, through the Big Apple, and finally to the wind-swept deserts of America’s Southwest. But even as he searches for his last living relative, he finds himself embarking on another journey, into the mysteries of growing up. And discovering what the word ‘home’ truly means. An epic journey through a tumultuous period of history, The Immigrant will delight readers with its vivid portrayal of a world lost to time. An unimaginable adventure. An unforgettable young man.

“A young Eastern European immigrant struggles with issues of identity, love, and loss in Petrovsky’s novel. In the Bolshevik town of Komenska in Byelorussia, Lev is a 17-year-old Jewish boy who’s forced to flee the aftermath of a pogrom. Leaving behind a peaceful past and his hopes for a stable future, he seeks refuge with an eclectic group of Roma travelers who call themselves the Aluşta Traveling Circus & Sideshow of Amazing Freaks. Petrovsky showcases the diversity of this troupe of persecuted people, which, in addition to its Roma founders, includes a Hindu snake charmer and a Middle Eastern performer known as the Amazing Exploding Man. Lev’s horizons expand during wild nights with bewitching sex workers, conversations on freedom with a performer who sets himself on fire, and encounters with bigoted law enforcement. Unfortunate hostilities and unforeseen friendships lead him to board a ship traveling from Finland to New York City, where he works in a brothel on the Lower East Side and navigates conflicting local Jewish communities; later, he makes a move to the West. Throughout his journey, Lev searches for love, tries to hold onto the values of his childhood, and comes to terms with the traumas of his past. This work balances distanced observations about the world with the intense emotions of the immigrant experience. Petrovsky’s prose is succinct and simple, reflecting the perspective of a young man thrown headlong into the perilous task of growing up. Lev’s observations are carefully crafted to evoke universal themes; for example, he notes, upon arriving in New York, that “America is no better than any place else.…As an idea, it is genius, a towering light so bright that it blocks all ugliness and intolerance.” The author adds depth to the novel’s historical context by showing the complex dynamics among different ethnic groups, including conflicts between Southern and Eastern European Jews in New York and, much later, difficulties between Latine and Native American people in Arizona. A nuanced and poignant coming-of-age historical novel.”