Ice Road: A Novel - Softcover

Slovo, Gillian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393327205 ISBN 13: 9780393327205

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2005

Synopsis

"A gripping story of courage, disillusionment, survival, and the triumph of the human spirit."―Sarah Durant, author of The Birth of Venus

Loyalties, beliefs, love, family ties: all are tested to the limit in one of the most devastating moments of human history: the siege of Leningrad during World War II. Boris Aleksandrovich, a well-meaning bureaucrat, thinks he can negotiate between idealism and politics. His daughter, Natasha, learns otherwise when, as a young woman in love, she is almost crushed by her father's compromises. Watching all this unfold is Irina. Wise, ironic, marvelous Irina, whom Boris had persuaded to go on an ill-fated voyage to the Arctic Circle, where she barely survived. When she arrives back in Leningrad, he feels honor bound to find her a position within his family circle. Irina comes to understand how love for another may, in the end, be more powerful and more profound than blind loyalty to an idea. Exciting and heroic, peopled with wonderfully complex characters, Ice Road is a masterpiece. A finalist for the Orange Prize.

About this title

About the Author

Gillian Slovo, author of the novel Red Dust, now a feature film, and co-author of the play Guantánamo, as well as a memoir and nine other novels, lives in London.

Reviews

South African novelist and playwright Slovo--Red Dust (2001)--delivers a chilling historical novel about a group of Soviets living in Leningrad between the world wars. The tale opens with the observations of Irina Davydovna, a simple cleaning woman who survived the sinking of the Chelyuskin (an actual research ship that became ice-bound on its way to the Arctic in 1933). Irina delivers devastating descriptions of the Soviet Union--Stalin's military purges, the murder of Leningrad Chief Sergei Mironovich Kirov, the desperation of citizens in the clutches of an oppressive political regime. The novel loses steam when it switches to third-person narrative, highlighting the precarious personalities that populate Irina's life. Among them: her employer Boris Alexsandrovich, a government official torn between loyalty to his family and loyalty to the state; moody intellectual Anton Antonovich; and a fearless orphan named Anya. While Slovo's narrative may be uneven, her prose is luminous, evoking a landscape as cold and deadly as an ice pick to the heart. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393327205
• ISBN 13: 9780393327205
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 556