The Hidden Letters of Velta B.

From a critically acclaimed fiction writer comes the moving story of a boy with extraordinary ears who - with the help of a cache of his great-grandmother's letters - brings healing to a town burdened by the sins of its past. Young Maris has been summoned to his mother's bedside as she nears the end of her life; she feels she must tell him her version of their family history, the story of his early life, and the ways in which he changed the lives of others. Maris was born with what some might call a blessing and others might deem a curse: his very large, very special ears enable him to hear the secrets of the dead, as well as the memories that haunt his Latvian hometown. Nestled in the woodlands on the banks of the Aiviekste River, their town suffered the ravages of war, then the cold shock of independence. As a boy, Maris found himself heir to an odd assortment of hidden letters; a school project provided the chance to share them, forcing the town to hear the truth from the past and face what it meant for their future. With "luminous writing [and] affection for her characters" ( New York Times ), Gina Ochsner creates an intimate, hopeful portrait of a fascinating town in all its complications and charm. She shows us how, despite years of distrust, a community can come through love and loss to the joy of understanding - enabled by a great-grandmother's legacy, a flood, and a boy with very special ears.

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Praise for The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight : Longlisted for the Orange Prize A Finalist for the Ken Kesey fiction award A Bookmunch Favourite Debut 2009 One of Image Journal's Top Ten of 2009 New York Times Paperback Row "For writers of the present moment, Russian and non-Russian, the Yeltsin years have become a cauldron for a wildly imaginative, surreal literature grounded in post-Soviet exigency, a chilly Macondo stretching over 11 time zones. . . . Gina Ochsner, an Oregon native, sticks her ladle into the same overhead pot and, with luminous writing, affection for her characters and, especially, faith in language's humanizing power, manages to find a portion of hopefulness." - Ken Kalfus, New York Times Book Review "Satirical yet never losing touch with deep emotion, Ochsner illuminates her forlorn characters with the same loving care with which Tanya creates her fake icons." - Boston Globe

Praise for People I Wanted To Be : "In this brightly eccentric collec tion, [Ochsner] dives gracefully off the deep end and heads for the realm of the unpredictable...she has her own power to transport." - The New York Times "It's easy to lose yourself in this unpredictable, inspiring collection of short stories...Ochsner's originality lies in her ability to make the unknown tangible by taking what we do know for definite and twisting it...this is a beautiful, sensitive and frank book with a moving sense of the fragility of people's lives." - Time Out "A lean, poetic style whose fatalism brings to mind Flannery O'Connor's...strange, poignant, and deeply affecting stories." - LA Times "Her intuitive and masterly handling of the genre is a force to be reckoned with." - The Times Literary Supplement "Gina Ochsner's powerful debut presents eleven stories, many of which have the pared-down quality of her fellow Oregonian Raymond Carver's work...her distinctive prose style brands these stories of loss but holds them back from bleakness, allowing most characters to salvage a shred of hope." - Financial Times

Praise for The Necessary Grace to Fall: Winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction