Born in 1969 on the day of the first moon landing, Buzz Polštař is the only American-born child in a Czech political refugee immigrant family. Adrift between Old World and New, feeling alienated by so-called progress, Buzz struggles to find connection in New York City’s stultifying Long Island suburbs. When saying goodbye to his step-father for the last time, Buzz inherits his childhood home along with a closetful of shameful secrets. Buzz’s bizarre family saga and his earnest quest for friendship present a darkly comic yet touching portrait of the Cold War immigrant experience. With understated wit and a photographic eye for detail, Zverina zooms out to scope large events—the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Apollo 11 moon landing, and, yes, even Y2K—then zooms back in to examine the ramifications on the tiny individual lives History leaves bobbing in its wake.
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