Moonlight in Odessa: A Novel

Summary

From the internationally bestselling author of The Paris Library, an “effervescent” (National Geographic Traveler) novel that tells the tale of one woman who risks everything for love—and a green card.

It’s 2008 in Odessa, Ukraine, and Daria, a whip-smart engineer, spends her days underemployed as a secretary—a job she was lucky to get in this rotten economy. Under pressure to support herself and her grandmother, Daria lines up a second job at the matchmaking agency. She works as an interpreter and helps organize socials, parties where men unable to find girlfriends in the States are introduced to Ukrainian women desperate to get to the West.

Daria tells herself that moonlighting is just a way to make some extra money. She’s not looking for a mate, but her boss talks her into corresponding with Tristin, a client from California who is offering a one-way ticket out of poverty. She jumps at the chance, but Daria soon learns there’s a reason that her husband couldn’t find a wife in America, and that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the world.

A wry, tender look at marriage, the desires we don't acknowledge, and the aftermath of communism, the “wise, witty, wonderfully written” (Vivian Gornick, author of Fierce Attachments) Moonlight in Odessa delves into the choices and sacrifices that people make in the pursuit of love and stability. This novel, a blend of action, social commentary, and humor, is the result of the author’s years in Ukraine as a Soros Fellow, translating letters between American men and Ukrainian women, and interviews with email-order brides and their husbands, as well as her knowledge of the lucrative international matchmaking business.