Saturday, September 25, 2010

Just Jennifer

Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay (HarperCollins, September 2010)

As a young woman, Nina Revskaya was a prima ballerina with the Bolshoi ballet in Russia.  She was know as “The Butterfly” and performed the leads in many ballets, often for Joseph Stalin and his special guests.  Just after she reaches the apex of her career, something occurs that causes Nina to defect to America.  Now, she is a bitter, lonely 80-year-old woman, confined to a wheelchair.  She has just decided to auction her magnificent collection of jewels and a young woman named Drew Brooks is charged with assembling the collection, verifying its provenance and learning as much of the history of the pieces as possible.  When an anonymous donor, local Russian literature professor, Grigori Solodin, comes forth with an amber pendant necklace that matches two of the pieces of Nina’s amber, Drew feels they are part of the same suite and begins seeking out the history of the pieces, their makers, original owners, and pressing a reluctant Nina to remember their origin. 

As Nina reflects on her past life, her story slowly unfolds:  her rise in the Russian ballet, her marriage to Russian poet Viktor Elsin (Solodin is an Elsin scholar and translator), watching as her friends fight for survival in Soviet Russia, and seeing them taken away to a work camp.  As Nina tries to hold her life together and make the best of things, she learns something that leads her to believe the ultimate betrayal has been committed, and without a second thought, she flees Russia and seeks asylum in the United States of America.  Now her past comes crashing into her present as Drew presses Nina to reveal what she has hidden and as Grigori confronts his own past, the heartbreak he feels over losing his wife Christine, and the mystery surrounding his birth and adoption, secrets he thinks he has unraveled, but will be surprised to learn nothing is as it seems.  Drew also confronts her own failed marriage and the choices she has made for her present, but not her future. 

Russian Winter is a complex saga that spans generations and continents with a rich setting.  The history is cursory, enough to provide a good atmosphere, but nothing new is revealed to those with a basic understanding of life in Russia during this time period.   Modern day Boston in the winter provides a good backdrop for the remembered dismal Russian landscape with only a few bright spots.   As all the characters’ lives intertwine and separate, much like a ballet, an intricate plot is revealed; the characters are well-enough imagined, though readers may feel that Nina is too reserved and wonder if she has any remorse or regrets. 

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