The Line - Hardcover

Grushin, Olga

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 039915616X ISBN 13: 9780399156168

Publisher: Marian Wood Books/Putnam, 2010

Synopsis

Grushin's stunning debut drew praise that placed her in the top rank of young literary voices. Now she returns with that rarity: a second novel even more dazzling than her first.

The line: the universal symbol of scarcity and bureau­cracy that exists wherever petty officials are let loose to abuse their powers.

The line begins to form on the whispered rumor that a famous exiled composer is returning to Moscow to conduct his last symphony. Tickets will be limited. Nameless faces join the line, jostling for preferred position. But as time passes and the seasons change and the ticket kiosk remains shuttered, these anonymous souls take on individual shape. Unlikely friendships are forged, long-buried memories spring to life, and a year-long wait is rewarded with unexpected acts of kindness that ease the bleakness of harshly lived lives. A disparate gaggle of strangers evolves into a community of friends united in their desire to experience music they have never been allowed to hear.

The Line is a transformative novel that speaks to the endurance of the human spirit even as it explores the ways in which we love-and what we do for love.

About this title

About the Author

Olga Grushin was born in Moscow in 1971. She studied at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow State University, and Emory University. Her short fiction has appeared in Partisan Review, Confrontation, The Massachusetts Review, and Art Times. This is her first novel. Grushin, who became an American citizen in 2002, lives in Washington, D.C.

From Booklist

In 1962, Igor Stravinsky, long an expatriate, agreed to return to Russia for one concert. The line for tickets began a year before the event and evolved into a kind of microsociety, with those in the queue interacting almost like family. Grushin (The Dream Life of Sukhanov, 2006) focuses on one family in the line, a husband (a frustrated musician) and his mother, wife, and son. The novel moves at an excruciatingly slow pace—How could a story about waiting in a line do otherwise?—but, remarkably, it also generates considerable suspense: not suspense in the thriller sense, exactly, more like agonizing concern for these tortured souls who have come to invest so much of themselves in the idea of reaching the head of the line. A concert, yes, but it’s far more than that. Whether they intend to keep their ticket, sell it, or give it away, that small piece of paper represents an escape from the quotidian grayness of Soviet Russia—a rare exclamation point in a life of ellipses. Grushin works the metaphor brilliantly, but she never loses sight of the painful reality behind it. --Bill Ott

About this edition

• Publisher: Marian Wood Books/Putnam
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 039915616X
• ISBN 13: 9780399156168
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336