"At the Crossroads of Realization: A Review of Mark Budman's 'My Life at First Try'" by Chris Chiu
The American dream is often depicted as a gamble made by will, something that can bring you true liberation once you achieve it. Unfortunately, that idea is often only half the story, and many of us drift away from those dreams as we deal with the consequences of pursuing them in reality. In Mark Budman’s novel, My Life at First Try (Counterpoint, 2008), we are introduced to Alex, a Russian immigrant who embarks on his journey of becoming a writer and meeting his distant cousin who lives in America, Annie. The author, Mark Budman, also the author of “The Butterfly Effect, Times Four” in Issue Seven, is a flash fiction writer, polymath, inventor, engineer, translator, interpreter, and photographer. In this book, his comic talents and sharp eye are on full display.
Throughout the book, Budman keeps a rather fast and straightforward narrative, utilizing the form of flash fiction over a traditional novel structure. This format allows us to see the range of feelings and experiences Alex has while in pursuit of his American dream. As we witness him grow through so many different phases, we get a better glimpse how this pursuit solidifies and transforms over time, and how Alex grows and matures as a foreigner adapting to a new place.
Alex was born in the former Soviet Union in 1950, where people are coping with the industrialization movement. In one telling scene during Alex’s youth, he sees groups of foreign tourists downtown laughing loudly like kids. He hopes to become one of them when he gets older as he maintains his optimism and humor. This optimism even continues when he witnesses “…two men hitting each other,” who he interprets to be “boxers in training, ready to defend [his] country” (Budman, 2008). That’s the best way Alex can rationalize the alcohol abuse and crime around his neighborhood at the age of four.
Slowly, as Alex gets older, his abstract thought of becoming a happy foreigner gradually solidifies into a dream. He even finds love and moves to America with his family in the 1980s. However, his dream falls short from what he originally expected. Alex imagined that by moving to the United States, he would automatically be happy. “I’m sure I sound like a Texan,” he notes, ironically adding: “The kind who spent his formative years in Siberia” (Budman, 2008). This disconnect between who he is and who he wants to be is one of the book’s central conflicts.
Alex slowly understands that he did become an American, but not the type he imagined in the beginning. Alex’s idea of happiness transforms into something he searches for within, rather than something he searches for through his surroundings. Though at times outdated or overly irreverent with his jokes, Budman still gets at the reality of trying to pursue the American dream for immigrants, showing the impossibility of ever fully accomplishing it, as well as the disappointments felt along the way. We see struggles of assimilation, from getting bullied with no reasonable cause and feeling defenseless, to experiencing xenophobia and not knowing how to respond in a new language.
As an immigrant myself, there are all things I have experienced, so it is easy to put myself in Alex’s shoes. Ultimately, at the crossroads of realization, we are given a choice between keeping what we have in reality versus what we want for our reality, a struggle exemplified in Alex’s story. Choosing the former, Alex ends up accepting what he has, figuring out that he wasn't destined for what he dreamt of, but that he and his family are better off on the new path they are on.
Chris Chiu
Chris Chiu is one of the production editors for Issue Nine of MORIA. He is a third year architecture major with a concentration in commercial and low-income housing developments. When Chris isn't working, you can find him playing golf, petsitting, or trying to brainstorm his next personal project.