immersion.

In 1994, I left the Philadelphia scene to travel, play chess and create artwork in newly post-Soviet Eastern Europe. After travelling through western Europe, I headed to Prague, however unlike most of the 'expats' who ran off to the English-speaking “Paris of the 90s,” I found myself living outside of Prague and sinking deeply into Czech culture—and counterculture. Immersion is a collection of 11 short stories; ranging from cultural assimilation to illegal gun markets in romany ghettos, from playing chess with soviet mobsters to activism and psychedelics, from being incarcerated to sexual espcapades while motorcycling through war zones, and finally facing my conservative jewish upbringing at a concentration camp.

While the book is based in the Czech Republic, the stories explore the cultural changes going on in early 90s in Slovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Serbia, Ukraine and Russia. Sadly, many of these topics; war, corruption, mob-rules, xenophobia, and cronyism are still just as destabilizing today as they were 30 years ago.