This is my third book by Boris Fishman (his second novel chronologically: I started with his recent memoir "Savage Feast", then followed with his debut novel "A Replacement Life" - both of which I loved - and now found this novel, his second). Here he surprised me by going out on a limb and getting very insightful with a female protagonist (unlike his other two books - where he seems to be more comfortable with getting into the psyche of male characters). So that was a surprise for me - his getting so deep into the mind of Maya, an ex-Soviet immigrant in this novel and into the plight she is in. As in the other two books, his writing is noteworthy, genuinely intuitive, and truly eloquent. If one were to find a single flaw, I would say that his tendency to insert long fragments (separated by dashes on both sides) into sentences might be considered as one; but then, again, Jose Saramago's sentences tend to run a whole page (!), and his writing is brilliant... So, all in all, another great read from Boris Fishman. ( )

Can’t decide if I liked this book or I didn’t like it. I had to read it to the end though, to find out how the parents of an adopted boy find resolution when they leave their home in New Jersey to question the biological parents of the child as to why he might be acting so strangely. I’d like a sequel to the book to see what happens to the boy and whether the marriage of his adoptive parents survive. ( )

Originally Posted @ http://readaholiczone.blogspot.com/2016/03/my-review-of-dont-let-my-baby-do-rode...

The blurb is a bit misleading regarding what the story is about. My interpretation is that the book is centered mostly around Maya, not Max and any issues that are happening with him appear like an excuse to dig deeper into her personal issues.Therefore, I am leaving Maya’s personal problems, mostly untouched as not to give that topic away. The main adult characters, Maya, her husband Alex, and his parents are immigrants who came to America for a better way of life, though I find it surprising that they not only disliked Americans but also anyone who is not like them or has their beliefs, the family also thinks adopted children are second class citizens due to the fact they are unwanted by their biological parents. This implies something must be wrong with them. One aspect of the book that I found strange is that when Maya married into Alex's family, she took on their family's beliefs and views on life, leaving hers behind including her self-esteem. There contains an immense amount of hatred in the book making it tough to read, for example:

“Alex had never touched a gay man before, but now he was holding one’s hand as the twenty Participants formed a grieving circle to commemorate their failed fertility. Why were the gays grieving? They hadn’t been failed by fertility, they had been failed by their dicks.”

Why did Maya and Alex adopt Max if to them he is a second class citizen? Certainly they thought something was wrong with Max since they were all over the “situation” that took place like it was the end of the world. They assumed something ought to be detrimentally wrong with him because he is adopted, so let’s find his biological parents due to a request the biological mother had given (what did this have to do with his behavior?) or maybe he could just be acting like a boy. I found the need to track down Max’s biological parents extreme. Whereas, some things are genetic like health issues or physical looks. I highly doubt liking nature, such as sitting in a river looking at fish, having an interest in different types of grasses, sleeping outside in a tent would fall under genetic traits or be anything to get your panties in a knot about.

The prose is nicely written yet I found myself uninterested more often than not. To me the book lacked substance such as adequate situations to keep the reader stimulated, intrigued, or fascinated. Reading the book was more a chore for me yet I never gave up thinking something has to happen at some point that made this worth the time I’ve put into it, nope.

*I received a copy of this book from HarperCollins but the review is my opinion only.

Got any opinions about this review? ( )

What does it mean to belong? To a family? To a country? Does belonging impact your sense of who you are, your very identity? Is this something bred deep in the bone or is it dependent on your environment? These are just some of the thoughtful, philosophical questions asked in Boris Fishman's new novel, Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo.

Maya Shulman came to the US as a Ukrainian exchange student. Her dream to open a cafe and be a chef had to take a back seat to her medical studies. When her student visa was about to run out, she met and married Alex Rubin, a fellow Russian who himself came to this country with his parents when he was just a tiny boy. Alex had his own dreams that he suppressed to go into the family import business. When Alex and Maya discover they can't have children, they adopt a baby. But Max's advent in their family brings up many questions. Alex's parents, and Alex himself, are against adopting, arguing that you don't know what you're getting with someone else's child. Maya wonders if she's an imposter, not really a mother, not having carried and given birth to Max. And when Max at age eight starts to exhibit some strange behaviours, the Rubins decide that they need to go to Montana to track down Max's birth parents, a teenaged couple they met once before, to see if there are any genetic explanations for Max's predilections.

The farther they get from New Jersey, the more Maya is gripped with a desire to break free of the stultifying and constrained life she's been living. The open space and the wildness speak to something in her, much as she imagines it must call to Max, being the land of his birth. The road trip to Montana is bizarre and fanciful and sometimes surreal, as is the narrative as a whole. Fishman addresses issues of identity and immigrant life, the feeling of not being Russian anymore but not really being American yet either. Maya, in looking for answers about her strange and quirky son, is really on a voyage of self-discovery, one that will surprise her and her solid, often unimaginative husband both. The dynamics between the elder Rubins and their comparison to everything back home and the younger Rubins, settling for a passionless existence in almost every area of their lives, is well done and realistic. They are separated by not only a generation but also their cultural identification, Russian versus American. Max, as an adopted child, is the literal personification of this, a Rubin by law but not by blood so that he is forever a mystery to them. Fishman has certainly captured a sense of dislocation with its question of belonging and what that means here, both literally and figuratively. Each of the characters is fully formed even if they aren't always terribly sympathetic. The narrative meanders from the present to Alex and Maya's past and has dreamlike sequences along the way that interrupt the otherwise smooth flow. And the road map of where the Rubin family will go in the end feels more hopeful than the tone of the rest of the novel would have suggested. This is, without a doubt, a complex and complicated story with many levels to it, many questions, and a realistic lack of answers. ( )