Born Russian, Raised American

Born Russian, Raised American

fiction
edward w pritchard

In most Countries of the world the people tend to think that the world's greatest writers are from their own country or at least wrote in their language. However, among most cultured and educated persons of the world, there would be little doubt that the Country and time with the greatest concentration of great writers at once was Russia in the 19th century.

One of those writers had such a strong will to power that one life time wouldn't suffice and he was born again in 21th century America, after originally dieing in Russia in 1881. In his first life the writer became famous for his exploration of the psychological motivation of his characters, explained in long novels; in his second life in America the boy, who was the reincarnated Russian writer, became the subject of a famous court case involving individual rights.

Around 1997 a boy was born near Youngstown, Ohio on old route 224, a road that had been a major though fare in the nineteenth century but was now just a pleasant country road running through a lot of small towns throughout Ohio and Indiana. The famous Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky had traveled on this road once around 1875, when he came to America and when he wanted to be reborn in the 21st century he chose a location near old route 224.

When the boy who was the subject of this story was six years old he began to exhibit extraordinary ability with language, often writing stories of complexity involving the psyche's of his kindergarten classmates. The boy began to be called a potential genius. The boy's command of the English language was unparalleled and since he wrote in English he was beginning to be compared already to Shakespeare.

However, as the boy approached his teenage years, he began to have gambling problems, was unable to get along with his Father, and was brooding, gloomy and pessimistic in an existential way. He began in fact to express a marked tendency to existential angst. Compared to his classmates he was more or less normal, but the Father a prominent local Banker, and a glass is half full type, and a good business man insisted that the son see a psychologist. The wife strongly disagreed for she was of the opinion that the boy had special abilities and felt that attempts to make him conform would stifle his writing abilities, which were becoming remarkable.

The psychologist spoke to the boy several times, missed the connection with Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and prescribed little white pills twice daily in ever increasing doses designed to turn the boy into a normal teenager.

Sure enough the boy in time lost his interest in gambling, no longer referred to himself as the underground boy, and improved his grades at school, joined several sports teams and became like his school mates. He also began to get along better with his Father, all of which made the Father happy.

Unfortunately the Mother, who was an intellectual type missed the boys writing abilities, which had been vanished by the white pills, and the Mother began to question the situation with her son. In time the Mother and Father divorced and a famous child custody case developed which set precedent for this type of situation in Ohio.

End part 1