BURY ME BEHIND THE BASEBOARD
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A tale of crazy parenting from the child's point of view. A Russian gem.
Eight-year-old Sasha lives with his grandparents and is going to rot away by the age of sixteen - or so his foul-mouthed Grandma says. He is not allowed to sweat, to run, to sleep without his tights - or to see his mother too often. Yet living with his mother is all Sasha really wants, despite her boyfriend being a blood-sucking midget, in Grandma’s words. This compelling story of broken families, of parental rivalries, and of suffocating love moves between farce and tragedy with remarkable ease, in the best traditions of Dostoyevsky and Chekhov. Funny, insightful, and heart-wrenching all at once, Bury Me Behind the Baseboard enjoys cult status in Russia. It has been a major bestseller for more than ten years now, selling over a million copies and collecting prestigious literary prizes in Russia and Italy. It was translated into many European and Asian languages and made into a play performed across Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as into a popular movie in 2009. The novel also won the first place in the informal readers’ poll, 25 Books That Inspired the World (1989-2014), that featured in the November 2014 issue of World Literature Today.
Eight-year-old Sasha introduces himself thus: ‘My mother abandoned me for a blood-sucking midget and hung me around Grandma’s neck like a god-awful heavy cross.’
Grandma alternates between horrible verbal abuse—Sasha ‘stinks’ and is a ‘bastard’, destined to ‘rot away’ before he is 16—and excessive suffocating attention—she picks the seeds out of his grapes; he has to stand on a chair while dressing so his feet won’t get cold and wear woollen tights even in bed; he has to take homeopathic pills; and Grandma is terrified that he might sweat. He is taken to the doctor more often than school. According to Grandma, he has maxillary sinusitis, golden staph, colitis, chronic pancreatitis and intracranial hypertension. He has to take Ephedrin, Conium, colloidal silver, albucid and olive oil.
She says Grandpa will ‘rip out his arms and legs’ if he goes to play at the MREC again. Grandpa, however, is fully hen-pecked and depressed over his situation, unable to escape the harpy’s tongue.
All Sasha lives for is to see Mom, a rare occurrence. She has taken up with a boyfriend, whom Sasha is encouraged to view as an ogre. And fighting with Grandma takes up so much of the time he is allowed to spend with her. When he dies, he wants to be buried not in the cemetery, which frightens him, but behind her baseboard, so he can always see her.
The child’s-eye view of Sasha’s Voice is adorable. It’s Russian, but not overbearingly so and funnier than Dostoyevsky, containing some dream-like magical realism bits.
The truly insane behaviour of Grandma is told through the helpless eyes of the child. I have seen behaviour/parenting like this, which I’ve termed ‘crazifying behaviour’, and I’ve struggled to effectively represent it in writing. This parenting style is so crazy that I think Sanaev’s open-eyed, innocent approach is the only way to portray it. This approach stands back, uncommenting, and allows the reader to exclaim, ‘OMG, how insane!’
Though happily Sasha is eventually rescued, it kind of ends with a thud.
It is written in a distinctive style and has been beautifully translated by Konstantin Gurevich and Helen Anderson. The original publication apparently sold over a million copies in Russia, won literary prizes in Russia and Italy and was made into a movie in 2009. It won first in World Literature Today’s November 2014 readers’ poll ‘25 Books That Inspired the World’.
Reviewed by
Susie Helme is an American ex-pat living in London, after sojourns in Tokyo, Paris and Geneva, with a passion for ancient history and politics, and magic, mythology and religion. After a career in mobile communications journalism, she has retired to write historical novels and proofread/edit novels.
Eight-year-old Sasha lives with his grandparents and is going to rot away by the age of sixteen - or so his foul-mouthed Grandma says. He is not allowed to sweat, to run, to sleep without his tights - or to see his mother too often. Yet living with his mother is all Sasha really wants, despite her boyfriend being a blood-sucking midget, in Grandma’s words. This compelling story of broken families, of parental rivalries, and of suffocating love moves between farce and tragedy with remarkable ease, in the best traditions of Dostoyevsky and Chekhov. Funny, insightful, and heart-wrenching all at once, Bury Me Behind the Baseboard enjoys cult status in Russia. It has been a major bestseller for more than ten years now, selling over a million copies and collecting prestigious literary prizes in Russia and Italy. It was translated into many European and Asian languages and made into a play performed across Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as into a popular movie in 2009. The novel also won the first place in the informal readers’ poll, 25 Books That Inspired the World (1989-2014), that featured in the November 2014 issue of World Literature Today.
About the author
Paul Ross is a pen name that a prominent Russian author Pavel Sanaev took after immigration. His novel Bury Me Behind the Baseboard became a Russia's most enduring bestseller. In 2014 the book topped the list of “25 Books that Inspired the World, 1989-2014” by the magazine World Literature Today. view profile
Published on July 17, 2022
Published by
60000 words
Contains mild explicit content ⚠️
Genre: Coming of Age
Reviewed by
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