One Hundred Siberian Postcards

Book excerpt: Siberia: a vast and ancient territory, a mystery to the world outside its borders. Rick Wirick and his wife have gone to Siberia to adopt a baby girl. Rather than produce a straightforward account of this journey, so profound and personal in itself, Wirick has chosen instead to absorb Siberia, to immerse himself in its history, legends, social reality and natural splendour in order to evoke for his new daughter the grandeur of her birthplace. In one hundred interlocking vignettes, Wirick has created a sophisticated and passionate vision. Personal in conception, unique in structure, One Hundred Siberian Postcards is an inspiring and unusual introduction to a very far-away land. 'Wirick combines the lyrical with the unexpected in perfectly calibrated prose.' Rose George 'Tales from a parallel universe which is also strangely our own ... a genre-busting masterpiece.' Hugo Williams 'Some years ago, Richard Wirick and his wife (who already had two children of their own) adopted a baby girl from a Siberian orphanage. One Hundred Siberian Postcards is a gift for her, evoking the scenic grandeur of her birthplace, alongside the ramshackle quality of much Russian life ... comprising folk tales, beliefs, customs, moments from Siberian history, extracts from Russian writers, reflections on childhood and consciousness, and dreams, with a touch of magic realism, as when someone watching a case being X-rayed at an airport sees "dozens of little men ... sawing timber inside the Samsonite".' Tom Aitken, TLS 'Richard Wirick's deeply felt, beautifully written palm-of-the-hand-tales that make up 100 Siberian Postcards are as luminous as Basho's Narrow Road to Oku and as moving as the Hemingway vignettes of In Our Time. Yet Wirick's profoundly moving book is unlike anything else I've read; an ode to Siberia as much as it is to the human condition.' Samantha Gillison, author of The King of America 'Attentive and compassionate, Richard Wirick has journeyed through Siberia and returned with it. These 'postcards' provide startling glimpses into the fraught, yet tenacious, Russian spirit.' John Witte, Editor of Northwest Review 'Richard Wirick is an insurance lawyer with the soul - and the pen - of a poet.' Anna Reid, author of Borderland: A Journey through the History of Ukraine 'Compassionate and literate ... He has a mystic's confidence in the power of his imagination to prise bits of truth out of the frigid landscape.' Caroline McGinn, The New Statesman 'The best postcards are like poems: reptilian in a different way, they shed their excess skin of details and dates, and dart in on a little narrative, a clear image that speaks of the writer's experience. Richard Wirick has a it down to a fine art. An insurance lawyer from Los Angeles, he and his wife travelled to Siberia to adopt a baby girl. Having immersed himself in the landscape and culture, he returned with enough stories and still lifes to make 100 perfect postcards.' Tom Gatti, The Times