His work appeared in publications like Esquire where his readers took note of his interest in Eastern European locations. He lived in France for a time before moving to Seattle. It was around this same period that he secured a Fullbright teaching fellowship. On top of writing copy for ad agencies, he drove a cab and picked fruit in the years he spent trying to identify his purpose as an artist.įurst married his wife in 1969. The author tried his hand at a number of odd jobs after university. His interest in anthropology led to an encounter with Margaret Mead who became his employer.īesides the MA he got from Penn State University, Furst also pursued and failed to finish his Ph.D. By then, he had already majored in English, eventually graduating with a BA in 1962.
He believes that every writer should study anthropology. A former student at Horace Mann School, Furst also attended Oberlin College. As such, growing up in the Upper West Side, he spent a lot of time exploring Manhattan, either alone or with friends. An unusual viewpoint, solid research, and unobtrusively elegant writing make this pure pleasure to read.His parents were older and he was an only child. Stoianev spends the wax with the French resistance but even in his remote hideaway, he feels the reach of both the NKVD, who want him back and will never rest until they have him, and the secret alliance of his classmates. Top in his class, Khristo forms a secret alliance with several fellow students-an alliance that surfaces again and again in the years that follow as Stoianev sees bloody action in the Spanish Civil War and then, fleeing the Stalinist purges, holes up in Paris. Antipin sends Khristo to Russia for training by the NKVD and employment as a covert operative.
Khristo is ripe for recruitment by Antipin, a Russian agent in Vidim to subvert the fascists.
When young Nikko Stoianev can't help laughing at their strutting, the fascists stomp him to death, instantly creating a lifelong enemy in Nikko's brother Khristo. This intelligent and absorbing story opens in 1934 in Vidim, Bulgaria, a tiny backward town on the Danube where the fascist movement has beguiled the local bourgeoisie, who have decked themselves out in Balkanized Nazi-style uniforms run up by the local tailor, a Jew, and taken to marching menacingly about town. The author of Shadow Trade (1982) and The Caribbean Account (1981) follows the career of a Bulgarian agent from his recruitment by the Russians in the early 30's to the aftermath of WW II.
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