Ivan and Misha is a novel about the intertwining lives of twin brothers, told as a series of interconnected short stories. Each chapter (or story) is told by a different narrator, sometimes Ivan or Misha themselves, and sometimes friends, family, or lovers. Reading the novel is like interviewing witnesses to the same event – it takes a little work to decipher fact from opinion, and you often have to work backwards to find the overlapping moments of significance, but you ultimately come away with a broader understanding.

On the surface, the brother couldn’t be more different – Misha is blond and slender, whereas Ivan is dark-haired and somewhat stocky; Ivan is a dreamer, often relying on others to keep his thoughts on track, whereas Misha is the thinker, often taking responsibility for his brother. Even when sharing the common ground of sexuality – both brothers are gay – they are as different as night and day in their choice of partners, means of expression, and dependence upon the affections of others.

There’s a lot of love in this book, and a lot of discussion about what love really means. Ivan and Misha’s love for their long-lost mother is an underpinning of their relationship, almost as deep as their love for one another – an intimacy that borders upon (and, depending on how literal you read it, crosses the line of) being inappropriate. It’s also a story about the risks involved with love, whether it’s challenging a father’s acceptance, transplanting twinned lives across the world, or continuing to love beneath the shadow of AIDS.

Of course, there is also a lot of other, darker, more dangerous emotions in their stories. There is an overwhelming amount of jealousy and feelings of betrayal between the brothers; instances of mental instability, both manic and depressive; the looming threat of AIDS; a debilitating stroke; and, at the both the beginning and the end of it all, the spectre of death – the first unnatural and selfish, the latter entirely too natural and selfless.

Not an easy read by any means (the narrative often descends into a dream-like state, the timeline tends to jump around a bit, and some passages are just outright strange), but an interesting one. I’ve been trying to avoid any Eastern European clichés, but this book really is like a Russian nesting doll, with stories inside stories, each of them revealing something grander, but demanding a greater share of attention to appreciate what you’ve found. ( )

Ivan and Mischa by Michael Alenyikov explores the many forms of love between men. This includes gay men who love each other, certainly, but it also includes the love between fathers and sons, between brothers and between friends as well. Love takes many forms even when it does not cross between sexes.

Ivan and Mischa are fraternal twins, raised by their father after the death of their mother, they believe, in childbirth. Their father Louie takes them away from their Kiev birthplace as the Soviet Union is collapsing, choosing to raise them in New York City. As adults, Ivan is unable to make his dreams of wealth come true, but he finds satisfaction as a cab driver, when he has his bi-polar condition under control at least. Mischa lives with his much younger lover Smith; theirs is a difficult relationship that may not outlast the novel. The two brothers share the duty of caring for their aging father with their father's devoted friend Leo.

Mr. Alenyikov tells his tale through a series of interconnected shorty stories much like A Visit from the Goon Squad and Olive Kitteridge. Of late, this has become such a common device, inter-linked short stories, that it may end up a sort of sub-genre unto itself. It would be possible to read any of the stories in Ivan and Mischa disconnect from the rest, but through them a fully formed narrative emerges. When we find out in one story that what Louie has told his sons in another is not true, we fell the emotional impact doubly because we know how the lie has affected Ivan and Mischa in ways Louie does not. While the same effect could certainly be achieved in a traditional, linear narrative form, the use of short stories allows for a book with several points of emotional impact. Narratives typically have one big reveal in them at some point. A novel has one. A short story has one. A book of shorts stories has as many. Mr. Alenyikov uses this new form, the series of interconnected short stories, to deliver a series of emotional moments that would be difficult to do in a novel without reaching a point of critical overload.

It's become my habit the last few years to keep only books that I think I'll read again. The rest I give away. I'll be keeping my copy of Ivan and Mischa. I'm confident that it will end up on my list of top ten favorite reads this year, and I'm sure that I will read it again. ( )

Another book I'm struggling to review because I enjoyed it so much (why is it so hard to review something really good?). This subtitle of this book is 'Stories' (as opposed to 'A Novel') but there's more cohesion in this than in some novels I've read. The stories center around fraternal twins Ivan and Misha, Ukrainian immigrants living in New York City, and their small sphere: their father Louie, Misha's boyfriend Smith, Ivan's lovers and confidantes. Each story begins almost in the middle -- it would take me a minute or two to figure out who the focus of the story was, when the story was set -- but despite my brief disorientation, I read on because the characters so intrigued me.

There's a bittersweet sadness to the stories that comes from the few secrets kept between the brothers, the tension of family and the other people who want them (or worse, don't). I don't read much fiction about fathers and sons, but certainly I could relate to the uncomfortable agony of a frustrating parent or sibling. The secondary characters aren't just foils for Ivan, Misha, and Louie -- they're vibrant and have their own complicated back stories, jostling for the reader's attention the way they jostled for Ivan and Misha's attention. This is a book that will stick: I'm wishing for a sequel, so to speak, so I can see where the twins are now, a decade later, and if they've found happiness and peace and love.

Alenyikov's writing style was the star for me: the narrative is nearly dreamy, a mix of dialogue and stream-of-consciousness, flashback and action. That makes it sound very convoluted, but it isn't; I was reminded of Jeanette Winterson and Anne Carson, maybe Michael Cunningham a little. Alenyikov created unease, quietude, or amped-up anxiousness with his writing style, depending on who the focus of each story was, and I loved that even the prose had personality.

New Yorkers will want to read this as Ivan is a cabbie and the city looms and supports, a constant backdrop to the stories. (There's a bit with a Mormon missionary looking at the nighttime skyline, and he says: "They say it's a godless place, but unless it's the devil's work, this is, well, you know, it looks like heaven." I figured New Yorkers would crow with delight.) Still, whether you're blessed to be from New York City or not, pick up this book: it's a slender read (less than 200 pages), but meaty, a wonderful and heartbreaking look at love, family, and belonging. ( )

What probably most surprised me of this novel is that, despite the more than serious plot, it was not tragic at all; it had indeed a “Russian” feeling, Russian is a particular people, apparently cold and unwelcoming, but able to open their home and arms in the intimacy of a friendship or love or family, family most of all.

Ivan and Misha are fraternal brothers, twins, but they are very different: Misha took from his mother side as appearance, blonde and lean, instead Ivan is dark and short. The differences are not only physical, Misha has always been the thinker and Ivan the dreamer; even when they were little, it was Misha who took care of Ivan and Ivan has always known Misha was there for him. Now that they are in their twenty, and a lot of things have changed, first of all they moved from Kiev to New York City, Ivan and Misha’s bond is still there, stronger than everything, even stronger than the bond they have with their respective partner. Both Ivan than Misha are gay, and Misha is in a in-living relationship with Smith, but if Ivan calls, at every hour, for every reason, Misha lets go everything and answers him. The reader will learn that it’s not only a brotherly love, that there is more between them, a bond that dares not only conventions, but also law. The reader will learn that Misha has AIDS and that Ivan is mad with him, not since he is ill, but because he did it to “them”, and moreover he did it for the love of a man who was not Ivan. Misha loved Kevin, and he loves Smith, but that love, and this love, is small thing in comparison to the bond he has with Ivan. Oddily, this bond is not proposed to the reader like a drama, or a forbidden thing, but it’s more like something unavoidable, like if there was no Ivan without Misha, or no Misha without Ivan. They can find temporary lovers, they can be even happy with those lovers, but the real relationship is only one.

Every chapter of the novel, every story, is told from a different point of view and it has not really a consecutio temporis: “Ivan and Misha” is told by Misha, “Barrel of Laughs” by Louie, Ivan and Misha’s father, “It takes all kinds” by Smith, Misha’s actual lover, “Whirling Dervish” by Ivan, “Who did what to whom?” by Kevin, Misha’s former lover. In this way we have not only different point of views, but also different versions of the same story; sincerely no one of the voices is my favourite, they have all their strength and peculiarity. Of course Misha is probably the wisest, but not for this reason he is the one with the rightness on his side.

There are bad and good things, illness and death, but there is also a lot of love. And in a way it’s also a story with a happily for now ending. The death in the story was something the reader was prepared to, and maybe this is a spoiler, but don’t worry, the two brothers will be still alive at the end of the novel, still trying to find a way for them to be in this life, between their lovers on opposite side and their bond in the middle.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0810127180/?tag=elimyrevandra-20