The protagonists of Sana Krasikov's indelible stories are mostly women - some of them are new to America; some still live in the former Soviet Union, in Georgia or Russia; and some have returned to Russia to find a country they barely recognize and people they no longer understand. Mothers leave children behind; children abandon their parents. Almost all of them look to love to repair their lives, and when love isn't really there, they attempt to make do with a paler, lighter imitation of it, with substitutes for love.