IRENA SMITH at Books Inc. Palo Alto

In this lyrical and artfully woven memoir, a short road trip to California’s Central Coast becomes an epic journey through family history, loss, and connection.
When three generations of women—a Gen X narrator, her seventy-seven-year-old mother, and her twenty-two-year-old Gen Z daughter—set out for a quick trip to California's Central Coast, what begins as a road trip soon transforms into something far richer: a modern-day Odyssey. Over the course of three days, the three women brave a severe winter storm, encounter ravenous ostriches, walk through an enchanted light exhibit, binge-watch White Lotus, hunt for coffee with plant-based milk, bicker, reconcile, and share stories.
Troika braids the narrative of a three-day road trip with the longer strands of migration, memory, and motherhood, creating a layered meditation on distance traveled—geographic, generational, and emotional. The result is a kaleidoscopic journey that traverses the landscapes of identity and family history and stretches from the horrors of the second world war and an escape from Soviet Russia to adolescence and motherhood in the suburbs of Silicon Valley. As the narrative swerves from heartbreak to hilarity, from Homeric detours and Russian proverbs to internet memes, it weaves together an intimate, poignant, and darkly funny meditation on how we get from where we were to where we are—and what we carry with us along the way.

“Smith’s prose is a crisp delight—at turns funny, warm, grim, sad, and joyous.”—The BookLife Prize
“Lures you in with a road trip and delivers a meditation on all the incidental, mysterious ways we become who we are.”—Sasha Vasilyuk, author of California Book Award winner Your Presence Is Mandatory
“Heartfelt, moving, and, oh yes, very, very funny!”—Alina Adams, New York Times best-selling author of The Nesting Dolls and Go Oon Pretending
“In a voice at once fiercely honest and exquisitely tender, Smith explores what we inherit from our foremothers, what we pass down to our daughters, and the power we hold to forge new stories together. Like the best of road trips, Troika winds through shimmering vistas and surprising detours, delivering us, ultimately, to the possibilities that lie in our hearts. A wholly delightful journey from beginning to end.”—Nicole Graev Lipson, USA Today best-selling author of Mothers and Other Fictional Characters
“At its heart, Troika is the story of a road trip, but it’s also a meditation on intergenerational legacies, memories of a left-behind homeland, and how coincidences stitch our lives together. Offering delightful twists and turns, Irena Smith delivers an eloquent (and sometimes humorous!) portrait of three generations of women seeking new insights about themselves and the sometimes complicated ways we carry each other forward.”—Elizabeth Rynecki, author of Chasing Portraits, documentary filmmaker, and podcaster
“Troika is a triumph. Smith deftly weaves her Russian upbringing, mythology, and motherhood into a tight, funny, and, at times, heartrending tale that will change any reader who goes along for the ride.”—Jen Murphy Parker, author of Fault Line Boy

Irena Smith is a college admissions expert and the author of the award-winning memoir The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays. Born in Soviet Russia and raised in the United States, she weaves her experiences of migration, generational expectations, motherhood, and memory into her writing. Irena lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, a rotating cast of children, and two cats who are working on resolving their differences.

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