The Eitingons: A Twentieth Century Story - Softcover

Wilmers, Mary-Kay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1844679004 ISBN 13: 9781844679003

Publisher: Verso, 2012

Synopsis

A family history that explores the KGB, the fur trade, Freud and the assassination of Trotsky

Leonid Eitingon was a KGB assassin who dedicated his life to the Soviet regime. He was in China in the early 1920s, in Turkey in the late 1920s, in Spain during the Civil War, and, crucially, in Mexico, helping to organize the assassination of Trotsky. “As long as I live,” Stalin said, “not a hair of his head shall be touched.” It did not work out like that.

Max Eitingon was a psychoanalyst, a colleague, friend and protégé of Freud’s. He was rich, secretive and—through his friendship with a famous Russian singer— implicated in the abduction of a white Russian general in Paris in 1937. Motty Eitingon was a New York fur dealer whose connections with the Soviet Union made him the largest trader in the world. Imprisoned by the Bolsheviks, questioned by the FBI. Was Motty everybody’s friend or everybody’s enemy?

Mary-Kay Wilmers, best known as the editor of the London Review of Books, began looking into aspects of her remarkable family twenty years ago. The result is a book of astonishing scope and thrilling originality that throws light into some of the darkest corners of the last century. At the center of the story stands the author herself—ironic, precise, searching, and stylish—wondering not only about where she is from, but about what she’s entitled to know.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Leonid Eitingon was a KGB assassin who dedicated his life to the Soviet regime. He was in China in the early 1920s, in Turkey in the late 1920s, in Spain during the Civil War and, crucially, in Mexico, helping to organize the assassination of Trotsky. “As long as I live,” Stalin said, “not a hair of his head shall be touched.” It did not work out like that.

Max Eitingon was a psychoanalyst and a colleague, friend and protégé of Freud’s. He was rich, secretive and—through his friendship with a famous Russian singer—implicated in the abduction of a White Russian general in Paris in 1937. Motty Eitingon was a New York fur dealer whose connections with the Soviet Union made him the largest trader in the world. Imprisoned by the Bolsheviks, questioned by the FBI. Was Motty everybody’s friend or everybody’s enemy?

Mary-Kay Wilmers, best known as the editor of the London Review of Books, began looking into aspects of her remarkable family twenty years ago. The result is a book of astonishing scope and thrilling originality that throws light into some of the darkest corners of the last century. At the center of the story stands the author herself—ironic, precise, searching and stylish—wondering not only about where she is from, but about what she is entitled to know.

About the Author:

Mary-Kay Wilmers is the editor of the London Review of Books, the largest- selling literary publication in Europe. She has written for the Listener, TLS and The New Yorker.

About this edition

• Publisher: Verso
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1844679004
• ISBN 13: 9781844679003
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 492