Purchase
The Madonnas of Leningrad
Debra Dean
Gripping, touching, and heartbreaking, it marks the debut of Debra Dean, a bold new voice in American fiction.
William Morrow
March 2006
Featuring: Marina
240 pages
ISBN: 0060825308
Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Fiction | Contemporary
One of the most talked about books of the year . . . Bit by
bit, the ravages of age are eroding Marina's grip on the
everyday. And while the elderly Russian woman cannot hold on
to fresh memories -- the details of her grown children's
lives, the approaching wedding of her grandchild -- her
distant past is preserved: vivid images that rise unbidden
of her youth in war-torn Leningrad. In the fall of 1941, the German army approached the
outskirts of Leningrad, signaling the beginning of what
would become a long and torturous siege. During the ensuing
months, the city's inhabitants would brave starvation and
the bitter cold, all while fending off the constant German
onslaught. Marina, then a tour guide at the Hermitage
Museum, along with other staff members, was instructed to
take down the museum's priceless masterpieces for
safekeeping, yet leave the frames hanging empty on the walls
-- a symbol of the artworks' eventual return. To hold on to
sanity when the Luftwaffe's bombs began to fall, she burned
to memory, brushstroke by brushstroke, these exquisite
artworks: the nude figures of women, the angels, the serene
Madonnas that had so shortly before gazed down upon her. She
used them to furnish a "memory palace," a personal Hermitage
in her mind to which she retreated to escape terror, hunger,
and encroaching death. A refuge that would stay buried deep
within her, until she needed it once more. . . . Seamlessly moving back and forth in time between the Soviet
Union and contemporary America, The Madonnas of Leningrad is
a searing portrait of war and remembrance, of the power of
love, memory, and art to offer beauty, grace, and hope in
the face of overwhelming despair.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
| 
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy