"Russian Lover and Other Stories (Yeti), by Jana Martin. The excellent Portland, OR-based book-plus-CD arts journal Yeti is branching into book publishing, in association with Verse Chorus Press, and "Russian Lover," a collection of stories about tough-yet-fragile women drifting into new cities, is Yeti's first title. (Scoop up a first edition while you can!) Martin, who grew up partly in Boston, employs the city in much the same way that midcentury, live-action Disney movies used to: as a repressive place that you must leave if you want to be happy and fulfilled. In Martin's "Hope," the protagonist -- about whom we know nothing except that her father is a projectionist at "a Cambridge art house" -- abandons her lousy Boston apartment and her boyfriend ("a pseudo rocker in smallbutt jeans," this means you!), and leaves "that bleak northern city" on a bus headed for Florida. Buy a copy to read at the beach; you will not be disappointed.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/brainiac/2007/06/brainiacs_bedsi_4.html