Ed Falco On the Air

S2E3 The Heart of Things by Kristina Gorcheva Newberry

Ed Falco Season 2 Episode 3

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0:00 | 39:03

In her short story "The Heart of Things," Kristina Gorcheva Newberry explores the fraught relationship between three women: a mother and her two adult daughters. Carmen, the younger daughter, has been living in the U.S. for 17 years, while her mother and Leezy, her sister, have remained at home in the Soviet Union. It's not easy to say what this story is about, though certainly it concerns the distance, both psychological and cultural, between the thoroughly Americanized and socially liberal Carmen, and her traditional and socially conservative Russian mother and sister. But as much as it's about their differences, it's also about their connection--and that, for me, is where the magic of the story resides. 

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