Review: The Hidden Letters of Velta B.

A modern-day Latvian village comes to life, complete with the characters, closeness and ancient grudges endemic to small towns the world over, in this second novel from Gina Ochsner (The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight).

Born with a pair of fur-trimmed ears that grew to the size of soup bowls, Maris has always had the ability to hear the grass growing, the gossip moving through telephone wires and the murmurs of the dead in their plots, dug by his family, the local gravediggers. Now his mother, Inara, lies on her deathbed, telling him the stories of his family and neighbors, the secrets even his large ears have not heard. Some of the family anecdotes are funny, particularly those concerning his great-uncle Maris, for whom he was named: a flamboyant one-legged veteran who invented a bazooka-sized beet launcher and an electroshock "sloth-prevention" bracelet, among other gizmos. The stories underscore the tension between ethnic Latvians like their family and the Russians who moved to Latvia during Soviet times, or between the handful of Jewish households and the Protestant majority--although the feud Inara's father has with a Russian Jewish neighbor originates less in cultural disparity than competition for prime fishing spots.

As new wounds open and old ones heal, the words of Maris's great-grandmother Velta weave in and out of the narrative, taken from old letters she wrote to his great-grandfather during his imprisonment in the Soviet gulag. A mix of daily life, allegory, tragedy and folklore, written in words and even musical notes, and recovered by Inara from their foreclosed ancestral manor house, these missives offer glimpses into a past that left its scars on a family and a country.

For readers who love historical fiction and magical realism, The Hidden Letters of Velta B. is a gift on par with Joanne Harris's Chocolat. Wish-granting eels and a Ghost Girl lurk in its waters, printed words vibrate their stories to young Maris, and history speaks itself through the mouths of children. Although its citizens have access to modern technology, the bucolic setting and manual labor occupations of the main characters give the story a timeless feel, the struggles to find work and provide for children as universal as the need for ritual and the acceptance of each other's eccentricities. Quirky, ethereal, hilarious and sorrowful, Ochsner's intimate portrait of a group of people who must survive with each other's help, whether they like it or not, perfectly highlights the connections between the everyday and the transcendental elements of being human. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Shelf Talker: Citizens of a Latvian village coexist despite their eccentricities, with results both hilarious and devastating.

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