In the Red

August 1, 2014
A Stanford freshman finds herself drawn into an Eastern European immigrant underworld in this erotically charged second novel from Shapiro (13, rue Therese, 2011). Brought to America from a Romanian orphanage when she was 5, Irina has always felt isolated from her peers and her loving but clueless adoptive parents. Days after moving into her college dorm-where she's already aware she will not fit in socially-she meets Andrei, who immediately recognizes her as a fellow Romanian. He's older, but she's drawn to his sinister sense of irony, potential for cruelty and occasional flashes of vulnerability. They become lovers, and she begins spending most of her time with him and his two associates, crude fellow Romanian Drago and former Russian soldier Vasilii, who at first seems more refined than the others. Although Andrei calls himself a capitalist entrepreneur, Irina knows the men's enterprises, like a chop shop for stolen cars, are shady at best. She travels with the men to Las Vegas, where Vasilii marries the strikingly beautiful Elena, who has been sent to him from Russia. Life turns darker. The girls are made to attend a disturbing stage show that includes live sex. Drago informs Irina that he's offered Andrei $10,000 to fuck her. Andrei gives her a fake passport and bank account, then sends her to buy expensive clothing and jewelry she wears once-to make love with Andrei-before it disappears. Irina becomes increasingly aware that Vasilii is the one in charge and that perhaps he is a truly evil man. The story of Irina's life with Andrei is interspersed with bits of Romanian history and the dark, twisted Romanian folk tales Andrei tells. Also scattered throughout are scenes from Irina's future life as a lonely bank teller after Andrei casts her out of his world. The limpid prose quickly persuades the reader to a trust not unlike Irina's in Andrei-and like Andrei, Shapiro's novel is at first enticing, then ambiguous and ultimately coldhearted.

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October 1, 2014
Born in Romania and adopted by Americans when she was five, Irina has always felt isolated from her peers and family. But when she enters college, she meets Andrei, a suave, sophisticated fellow Romanian who works as an entrepreneur in a variety of shady ventures. The two become lovers, awakening in Irina a feeling of belonging she has never known. Irina begins to spend all of her time with Andrei and his cohorts, including the creepy Drago and Vasilii, a former Russian soldier whose marriage to the beautiful mail-order bride Elena provides Irina with a best friend who can help navigate the dangerous waters of life as a moll. The story of Irina and Andrei is interspersed with bits of Romanian history, several mysterious yet enchanting folktales, and snippets of Irina's short career as a bank teller, which she becomes when she is forced to leave Andrei behind. Shapiro (13 rue Th'r'se, 2011) has written a deeply dark yet strangely uplifting second novel, about a woman beginning to find herself, discovering her own power and the tools to make use of it.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)