The Madonnas of Leningrad - Softcover

Debra Dean

3.78

18,064 ratings by Goodreads

9780007215058: The Madonnas of Leningrad

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007215053 ISBN 13: 9780007215058

Publisher: 4th Estate, 2006

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About the Author:

Debra Dean is the author of The Madonnas of Leningrad and Confessions of a Falling Woman. She lives in Miami and teaches in the creative writing program at Florida International University.

Yelena Shmulenson, an actress and audiobook narrator, is a four-time winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award. She emigrated to the United States with her family in 1993 from Ukraine. Her theater credits include five seasons with the Folksbiene, two seasons at the Ellis Island Theatre, Enemies: A Love Story in Russian, and The Essence: A Yiddish Theater Dim Sum. On film, she can be seen in The Good Shepherd, Romeo & Juliet in Yiddish, Fire at the Triangle, and A Serious Man.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* Her granddaughter's wedding should be a time of happiness for Marina Buriakov. But the Russian emigre's descent into Alzheimer's has her and her family experiencing more anxiety than joy. As the details of her present-day life slip mysteriously away, Marina's recollections of her early years as a docent at the State Hermitage Museum become increasingly vivid. When Leningrad came under siege at the beginning of World War II, museum workers--whose families were provided shelter in the building's basement--stowed away countless treasures, leaving the painting's frames in place as a hopeful symbol of their ultimate return. Amid the chaos, Marina found solace in the creation of a "memory palace," in which she envisioned the brushstroke of every painting and each statue's line and curve. Gracefully shifting between the Soviet Union and the contemporary Pacific Northwest, first-time novelist Dean renders a poignant tale about the power of memory. Dean eloquently describes the works of Rembrandt, Rubens, and Raphael, but she is at her best illuminating aging Marina's precarious state of mind: "It is like disappearing for a few moments at a time, like a switch being turned off," she writes. "A short while later, the switch mysteriously flips again." Allison Block
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