Letters from Dwight

A "down and out" memoir describing slum life in Southern California. The author, an ex-professor of Russia, rents rooms on Dwight Avenue (Riverside) to an incredible series of oddballs, meanwhile trying to keep up with events in the collapsing Soviet Union and to maintain contact with his broken family. His letters, transcribed from cassette recordings sent in the 1980's, describe the most ordinary and yet fantastic experiences: going to a strange Halloween party, living with a religious maniac, reading aloud to friends with a barn owl perched on his shoulder, visiting his hometown (Washington DC) and getting lost on the beltway, discovering the filthiest toilets in the world (Moscow), dealing with crazy Russians, debating with professors at the university, running madly after sex, suffering serious injury in karate class, riding in an ambulance with bullets whistling all around, freaking out from the medications... It's an unusual ride with an author who speaks with urgency, irony and brutal wit.