New Yorker Fiction Review #316: "From, To" by David Bezmozgis

 

Review of the short story from the April 14, 2025 issue of The New Yorker...

Occasionally it happens that I read a short story with a great amount of focus and attention, underlining key passages and details I want to refer back to in my review, synthesizing ideas and themes on the fly, in preparation for the blog post I fully intend to write the moment I finish the story...and then it ends up taking me two weeks to sit down and write my review. 

Sadly, such is the case with my review of David Bezmozgis' short story "From, To," a finely-wrought story about a Jewish family from -- presumably Chicago or perhaps Toronto -- as they go through the death of the matriarch and venerated elder (the main character's mother) while they also have to deal with the fact that the main character's daughter (Mila) is protesting against Israel's operations in Gaza. 

Bezmozgis is a Latvian-born Canadian filmmaker and novelist with what looks like a shovelful of awards heaped at his six films, two novels, and one short story collection. It's not difficult to see why. Based on my one sample of exposure to his work -- namely, this short story -- Bezmozgis' sure, strong, directorial hand is clearly evident. This is a guy who knows how to tell a story. Knows how to pace it, what details to give, when to focus in on a certain character and when to pull back. I am highly curious as to the rest of his body of work. 

It's been too long for me to offer a cogent and well woven examination of all the themes from this story and how they work together, so instead I here offer what I found to be a few of the story's more potent quotes and insights:

"Maybe that is the line between childhood and adulthood, when you begin to hesitate to die for your parents."

"In short, his family are essentially fascists, comfortable with totalitarianism when it suits them. Not just his family. He is convinced that this is true of most people. Democracy is a discipline, like diet and exercise, strenuous and irksome. Sooner take a pill or eat cake."

This line, above, is probably the "key" to understand this story. Vadik -- the main character -- sits in the middle of life (his mid-40s or so) and in the middle between his mother's generation -- hard-line conservative Zionists -- and his daughter's generation -- young, Liberal, and pro-Palestine or at least anti-genocide. As an attorney, he likely finds himself in the middle of many sticky situations and has to be the level-headed one, at times dispassionately abiding by the law of the land. It may not always suit him, but that's his job. Much as he, at the high-noon of adulthood, a professional man with a family and resources, must get his family through this crisis, steer the ship, as it were, through to calmer waters. 

There is a lot to like in this story and in Bezmozgis writing. I am looking forward to watching his films. 

Illustration by Franco Zacha