St. John’s Night is a traditional midsummer Latvian celebration where family and friends get together to build bonfires, drink and have a good time. According to a legend, on this night lovers and those who wish to fall in love can search the woods for the "magic fern".
Iwan Rabcynski, born in St. Petersburg (Florida), writes Russian melodramas under the pseudonym "John F. Romanoff. He gets his inspiration in Brooklyn, his chosen home. His new novel, which is meant to be autobiographical, begins with his Russian great grandfather in St. Petersburg in 1882 and follows three generations as they survive the country's political upheavals.
