The Rooms We Live In

This story began with a door hidden behind a Czech sideboard in a Kyiv apartment and slowly became a story about the people who lived there before me.

About rooms, memory, and the things that survive history.

Author's Note

This is a work of creative nonfiction, drawn from memory, family stories, and facts collected over many years.

The architecture of these rooms, and of the lives lived inside them, is factual. Where the record leaves gaps, I have imagined the connective tissue: conversations, gestures, and the small moments of daily life.

The people are real. Their happiness and their struggles are real. My attempt is merely to help them move through those rooms again, as they once did.

Chapters

Part 1 - The Door

A football match, a hidden doorway, and the apartment where it all begins.

Part 2 - Rosa

A sixteen-year-old pianist, a forbidden ragtime score, and a birthday haircut in 1916 Kyiv.

Part 3 - No Guitar Lessons

A prison-camp veteran, impossibly strong tea, and the most unlikely guitar teacher.

Part 4 — Operation 'Childhood Complete' (coming soon)

Part 5 — The Evacuation (coming soon)

Part 5 — What Survived (coming soon)

Part 7 — The Return (coming soon)