In his debut short story collection, The View From Stalin’s Head, Aaron Hamburger depicts characters adrift and out of alignment with their perceptions of politics, religion, ethnicity, and sexuality. The fact that the majority of these stories are set in the rapidly changing post-Communist Prague of the 1990s, with its influx of disillusioned American expatriates and the growing influence of Capitalism, is a perfect counterpoint to the character’s feelings of dislocation and yearning. But Hamburger has a light touch, presenting his stories in vignettes and enigmatic episodes. There is a lot of angst in these pages, but one never feels burdened by it. Instead, there is a pervasive feeling of sadness and regret lying just beneath the everyday surface of things.

Many of the protagonists are Americans who have come to Prague either to teach English or sightsee. In less capable hands, this would lead to a stale sameness, but Hamburger makes each lost American different, with his or her own set of emotional roadblocks. That a good many of these protagonists are gay or Jewish or both makes a welcome change from the majority of short story collections published these days.

In the opening story, “A Man of the Country,” the narrator is gay, Jewish, and an American teaching English in Prague who develops an unlikely friendship with a Czech “giant” named Jirka. What starts as a story of unrequited sexual attraction between a gay man and a straight man quickly takes a more subtle turn as cultural differences appear and the narrator’s deep sense of isolation comes to the surface.

“Once upon a time,” the narrator says, “I imagined I could move somewhere and dissolve like an old newspaper in a stiff rain. But I’m horribly lonely now, not just for love, but for people to tell everything that’s bubbling inside me in full-blown, gorgeously complicated language, with the generosity of a big portion. I’m more than an asexual sidekick or polite, helpful English teacher. If I don’t know exactly what I can do or who I am, at least I can settle for eliminating the things I am not.” (pg. 18-19)

While American English teachers (gay and straight) are the protagonists of several other stories, Hamburger shows his range by focusing on a more varied group including a middle-aged American Jewish couple visiting Prague, a Czech teenage boy, an ex-patriot American woman desperately trying to rouse the masses to political action, a Czech security guard, and a lonely American woman taking Jewish folk dancing lessons in the hopes of meeting a mate. In every case, the expected outcomes of these stories are turned upside down.

Hamburger’s gay protagonists are not particularly happy men nor are they at ease with the way they are expected to behave as gay men in the 1990s. In “Garage Sale,” a gay American English teacher in Prague finds himself much more at ease and happy around his Czech female friend then the slick, pathetic pretty boy he has been dating. So he ends up adopting the role of heterosexual son in earnest. Yet one is left feeling that even this “betrayal” of his gay identity is more a practicality than a profound change. It mirrors the Westernization of post-Communist Prague in its abrupt, forced normalcy.

It is in the one story not set in Prague that Hamburger makes his most romantic statement of gay love, at least on the surface. “Law of Return” takes place in Israel, where American Michael and his friend Becky arrive to visit some of Michael’s relatives. They are really there so Michael can renew an affair he started in Prague the previous summer with his cousin Eli, who has since returned home. The story beautifully portrays the ache and yearning and secrecy of the affair, while also offering a keen portrait of Becky, Michael’s “beard,” who finally sees how unimportant she has been to someone she considered a dear friend. “I haven’t made a dent on you, Becky thought, no more than a mosquito landing on your arm for a few second.” (pg. 211).

There is a remarkable coherence to The View From Stalin’s Head, helped in part by its sense of place and of the times. One expects the characters from the different stories to bump into each other on the streets of Prague. In fact, a secondary character in one story resurfaces in another, giving that character more depth than could possibly have been achieved by just the one appearance. Hamburger’s debut is thoughtful, poignant, and sharp, a welcome package of emotionally resonant yet enigmatic tales where gay protagonists are just part of the bigger picture.

Originally published in Lambda Book Report, August/September, 2004