Calling Ukraine

Adrift after a recent breakup and still mourning his father’s death, American journalist John Turner relocates to Ukraine to work at a call center. His task is to teach the customer service employees how to sound more American, including mastering the nuances of American small talk. Cultural differences bring some expected challenges. John, who knows only a handful of Ukrainian words, finds himself newly wealthy in a foreign country, befriends a loud-talking American Peace Corps worker, and endures painful language-based misunderstandings. Unexpected challenges are also present, such as when the woman next door, whose violent disputes with her husband can be heard through the wall, turns out to be a coworker on whom John has a crush. John intervenes, with disastrous results. Narrator Dan Bittner deftly narrates the story, effectively relating historical information about Ukraine and capturing the delicacy and awkwardness of cultural clashes with sharpness and wit. Bittner provides effective vocal characterizations and nails the tone of this sometimes uncomfortable but always insightful novel.