Invention of Exile (Manko)

The Invention of Exile 
Vanessa Manko, 2012
Penguin Group (USA)
304pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594205880


Summary
Austin Voronkov is many things. He is an engineer, an inventor, an immigrant from Russia to Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1913, where he gets a job at a rifle factory. At the house where he rents a room, he falls in love with a woman named Julia, who becomes his wife and the mother to his two children.

When Austin is wrongly accused of attending anarchist gatherings his limited grasp of English condemns him to his fate as a deportee; retreating with his family to his home in Russia, they become embroiled in the civil war and must flee once again, to Mexico.

While Julia and the children are eventually able to return to the United States, Austin becomes indefinitely stranded in Mexico City because of the black mark on his record. He keeps a daily correspondence with Julia as they each exchange their hopes and fears for the future and as they struggle to remain a family across a distance of two countries.

Austin becomes convinced that his engineering designs will be awarded patents, thereby paving the way for the government to approve his return and award his long sought-after American citizenship. At the same time he becomes convinced that an FBI agent working for the House Committee for Un-American Activities is monitoring his every move, with the intent of blocking any possible return to the United States. 

Austin’s and Julia’s struggles build to crisis and heartrending resolution in this dazzling, sweeping debut. The novel is based in part on Vanessa Manko’s family history and a trove of hidden letters that serve as a kind of inheritance—letters from a grandfather she never knew.

Manko uses this history as a jumping-off point for the novel, which deals with themes of exile and invention and explores how loss reshapes and transforms lives. It is a profoundly moving story of family, history, and the meaning of home. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Brookfield, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Connecticut; M.A., New York University
   M.F.A, Hunter College
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York


Vanessa earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Hunter College where she was the recipient of a Hertog Fellowship. Prior to writing, Vanessa trained in ballet at the North Carolina School of the Arts and danced professionally before returning to school to earn her B.A. in English from the University of Connecticut.

She went on to receive her M.A. from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study where she focused on dance history and performance studies. Vanessa has taught writing at NYU and SUNY Purchase and she is the former Dance Editor of The Brooklyn Rail. An excerpt of The Invention of Exile, her first novel, was published in Granta 114, Exit Strategies in 2012. Originally from Brookfield, CT, Vanessa now lives in Brooklyn, New York. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
An achingly painful and all too relevant meditation on what can happen to identity when human beings are crammed inside an unforgiving container of politics, bureaucracy, and fear...Manko’s own prose is… rich and convincing…[A] wonderful first novel.
Elizabeth Graver - Boston Globe


The summer’s surest candidate for lit-hit crossover.
New York Magazine


Manko’s debut thrums with longing.
Vanity Fair


An incident from her own family history inspired Manko’s fine fiction debut, in which Austin Voronkov, a Russian engineer and inventor, emigrates to the U.S. in 1913 and finds...[himself] falsely accused of being an anarchist.... The beating heart of Manko’s story is Austin’s determination to be reunited with his family.
Publishers Weekly


Trust Penguin Press to offer historically informed fiction. Early 1900s Russian immigrant Austin Voronkov is a happily married father of two in Bridgeport, CT. But after tripping over his English while responding to accusations [of anarchy,] the family must flee [their U.S.] home.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) A man separated from his family for years reckons with his isolation in Manko's debut, a superb study of statelessness.... She deeply explores...the impact of years of lacking a country.... A top-notch debut, at once sober and lively and provocative.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What are your definitions of home and family? What are Austin’s? How do your definitions align or differ?

2. What was your reaction to the interrogation scenes in Connecticut (pp. 20–37)? Do you think there was anything Austin could have done to sway the inquisitor’s mind?

3. How is the lighthouse symbolic in Austin’s and Julia’s lives? What about Julia’s flooded garden?

4. Austin is very hopeful, to the point of obsession, that his inventions will aid him in reuniting with his family. How does the theme of invention work in his life and in the novel?

5. What is Anarose’s role?

6. The storyline and perspective shift and jump over time and place. How does this structure inform the story?

7. Austin muses, “Paper is stronger than one thinks. Papers, documents don’t define a man, but they lived in a mire of them. . . . His days revolved around papers. But no amount of paper means a country” (p. 116). What do you think about this passage? How do papers control how Austin conducts his life?

8. How does Austin’s story fit into the trope of the United States as a “melting pot” for immigrants? How did it influence your thoughts on the immigrant experience?

9. Austin is paranoid that an FBI agent, Jack, has him under surveillance. Do you think the agent is real, or is he a figment born of fear and distrust? What purpose does Jack serve?

10. Correspondence is a vital undercurrent in Austin’s life. How do the many letters and notes we read bring him closer to—and push him further apart from—his loved ones? How do you correspond with people close to you?

11. How does Austin’s conception and understanding of being American and returning to the United States change throughout the novel? What was your reaction to his thoughts in the final pages?

12. What does the title, The Invention of Exile, mean to you? In what ways was Austin in exile?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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