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Local Author Mary Kay Zuravleff Tries On Historical Fiction in American Ending

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Risk-taking comes naturally for author Mary Kay Zuravleff. As the descendent of Russian Orthodox immigrants who mined coal, Zuravleff might say it’s in her blood. After writing three literary novels with contemporary settings, she pivoted and penned a work of historical fiction rooted in her own family’s story, American Ending

Zuravleff’s previous work has garnered literary awards and grants and her latest seems to be headed on the same trajectory. Man Alive! was a Washington Post Notable Book in 2013 and her first novel, The Frequency of Souls, won the American Academy’s Rosenthal Family Foundation Award. This spring, American Ending made the coveted list of Oprah Winfrey’s Best Books for Spring prior to its June 6 release date.  

American Ending opens in Marianna, Pennsylvania, in 1908, with a young Yelena narrating: “I hoped the sisters I’d never met would never join us, and when they did arrive, I wanted to send them back—that’s how American I am.” 

The novel follows Zuravleff’s feisty, first-generation American protagonist through the arrival of two elder sisters from the old country and the early years of Yelena’s marriage to an Old Believer Russian Orthodox immigrant. The couple starts a family and moves to Erie, Pennsylvania, to escape the coal mines. The culminating scene involves a visit from a census taker in 1920 and previously appeared as an excerpt in Furious Gravity: Volume IX in the Grace & Gravity Series, founded by Richard Peabody. Melissa Scholes Young, editor of the series, calls Zuravleff “a master storyteller. In sophisticated, lyrical prose, she makes an immigration story fresh and poignant.”  

When asked about the difference between her previous work and her most recent novel, Zuravleff responds: “When I gave readings [for the first three books], people would ask where on earth I got my ideas, or they’d praise the wordplay. But presenting this novel, I’ve been rushed by people who are moved to tell me how America wronged them, what single act of generosity saved their great-grandmother from starving, or who struggled before them so they could get this far. The deep wounds and feelings in the audience are remarkable, and I feel privileged that hearing some of my book inspires them to share.” 

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