UKRAINIAN MONSTER
AN AMERICAN STORY

 In second grade, the school librarian  asked if anyone dreamed of becoming  a writer.

 

 I raised my hand and said, "I had a  dream that I was a writer."​

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 No one told me I could become one.  So I searched for my path—I studied  the humanities and went to  graduate school for political science,

concentrating on the roots of both liberal and conservative thought. I went on to teach British history—how England was saved from revolution—to British students at Oxford.

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Then my brother began to struggle with mental illness and became homeless in Portland. The fight to save him from the streets led me back to that childhood dream—to write. I began Ukrainian Monster: An American Story.  ​

The journey unearthed stories from my Ukrainian religious home, my liberal hometown, and the streets—where my brother searched for a home he would not find.

 

I had never imagined these worlds would meet, and least of all that they would have common threads. They are all stories of the fight for freedom—through cost, exile, and sheer exhilaration. And they are all ruggedly protected, misunderstood, and rarely told.​​​