Pushkin and the Queen of Spades [Paperback]

Alice Randall's Pushkin and the Queen of Spades, is, simply put, a great novel. Beginning with the hilarious double entendre of its title the book is rife with meaning and food for thought. The issues addressed in the book, our internal and external lives at the intersection of race and culture and the long term impact that our relations with our parents have on our own children are often discussed in solemn, ponderous and often contentious tones. Randall will have none of that. Rather, she embarks on a graceful, biting, and often hilarious tour de force that should leave the reader laughing out loud while at the same time soaking in the powerful ideas set out neatly inside the pearls of laughter.
The story line itself is simple. Windsor Armstrong is an African-American woman, graduate of Harvard, a professor at a University in the American southland, and the holder of a PhD in Russian literature. Her son Pushkin X is named after the great Russian poet and playwright, Alexander Pushkin (author of a famous book The Queen of Spades) whose own African ancestry formed the emotional basis of his work and life. Pushkin X has dashed Windsor's hopes that he would follow in his mother's academic career. He turned down Harvard and played American football, at the University of Michigan. Even worse, Pushkin's football skills have resulted in his becoming a star professional footballer. The book's plot is revealed in the opening paragraph, perhaps one of the funniest opening paragraphs I have read in recent memory. Brief excerpts follow:
"Look what they done to my boy! . . . Fifty million people have watched him on a single Monday night. He has given a Russian girl a diamond ring. He means to get married. My son is a football player engaged to a Russian-born lap dancer, a girl named Tanya who danced at a [strip] club call Mons Venus. There is a God and he's punishing me. This much bad luck cannot happen by accident."
It soon becomes apparent that Pushkin X has withdrawn his mother's invitation to his wedding after she expresses opposition to the marriage and, more importantly, after she once again refuses to reveal the identity of Pushkin X's father, long a source of contention between mother and son. The rest of the book is devoted to Windsor's internal dialogue in the days leading up to the wedding. She touches on her early childhood in Detroit up to 1968 and the impact of her relationship with her father, whom she adored, and her mother, whom she did not adore, who took her away from Detroit and her father to Washington, D.C. They arrive in Washington soon after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Despite her unhappiness in her new city (and with her mother) Windsor is provided with opportunities that take her on her life's journey to Harvard, to Russia and to a career as a scholar.
Her internal dialogue continues. Like a river, her dialogue takes many twists and turns. Randall's words emerge as a beautiful stream of consciousness that leads us to many new and unexpected destinations. She is never boring and often profound. She is also funny and downright sassy at times as she embarks on riffs that touch on such diverse topics as her sex life, Malcolm X, 'the souls of black folks', and writers such as Colson Whitehead and others. She touches on the meaning of being a mother and how the love of a mother (or father) for a child can bring more pain than we sometimes think we can endure. Simply put, in a context that Windsor Armstrong might enjoy - Curtis Mayfield may have had Windsor Armstrong in mind when he wrote the words "the woman's got soul".
The identity of Pushkin X's father and the nature of his conception gradually emerge as the book reaches it climax. That climax includes Windsor's wedding gift to Pushkin X - which gift is worth the price of the book standing alone.
In some respects the structure of Randall's dialogues are reminiscent of Joyce's Ulysses. This is not to compare Randall to Joyce but it is no small compliment to the power of Randall's writing to even be mentioned with Joyce in the same paragraph. As Christopher Hitchens once said about another writer compared unfavorably to Tolstoy, to be even compared to Tolstoy (or Joyce in this instance) is no small achievement even if one hasn't quite reached that stature. I enjoyed the book tremendously and encourage anyone with an interest in good books to pick this up and read it. It is a book to be enjoyed and savoured.