My Mad Russian

Three Tales

Fiction - Mystery - General
236 Pages
Reviewed on 07/29/2015
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Author Biography

Born on a farm in western Colorado, Steven Key Meyers earned degrees in English Lit at New York's City College (an excellent school!) and Columbia University. He lives in darkest Indiana, whose heroin epidemic provides the setting of his next book, Gone Geese. His books include the novels All That Money, The Wedding on Big Bone Hill, Good People, Queer's Progress, New York/Siena (containing The Man Who Owned New York and Springtime in Siena), and a biographical study of a once-famous American painter, The Man in the Balloon: Harvey Joiner's Wondrous 1877.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Tracy A. Fischer for Readers' Favorite

Grand! Is that a strange way to describe a book? If so, I don’t care. My Mad Russian: Three Tales by Steven Key Meyers is just that. Three unconnected novellas make up this very enjoyable read, and each is strong in its own right. Together, they make up a book that is wonderful from start to finish. The stories range from the wealth and devastation of 1930s New York to modern day L.A. and America’s heartland, and each has its own unique narrative voice and style. While the title story, My Mad Russian, was my favorite of the three, especially because it tickled my fancy of historical fiction, I enjoyed each of the stories immensely and found it difficult to put the book down.

Steven Key Meyer’s prose is glorious. Some of his phrasing, especially from the titular work, will remain with me for a long time, and I am glad of that. But his work is also very relatable, and Big Luck and Sidestep are completely modern. The characters in each story are vividly drawn and each of them, including the minor ones, is interesting. This book would appeal to any lover of fiction, and if you have a bent towards historical fiction, there’s even more to love. When I came to the end of Mr. Meyer’s book, I was left hungry for more, and I look forward to reading more work by this intriguing author. My Mad Russian: Three Tales is a work of literary art, and one that I couldn’t recommend more.