Seize Your Copy The Red Daughter Written And Illustrated By John Burnham Schwartz Accessible As Ebook
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'She survived her life, which maybe under the circumstances is maybe sort of heroic, '
John Burnham Schwartz takes liberty with his fictions, imagining the life of Josef Stalins daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva, as she defects from the communist state to America in, leaving behind her son and daughter,
carrying with her the stain of her fathers infamy.
Always thereafter to be a foreigner in every sense of the word having left her homeland, a terrible mother to the two children she abandoned, that even Americanizing herself through marriage, now Lana Peters can never remove the blood that runs through her veins.
Though there is an electric current that runs between Svetlana and her young lawyer Peter, loosely based on the authors own father, the meat of the novel is in the tragedy of being Stalins daughter, it is a poisonous legacy.
The cruel truth behind her mothers erasure, the rest of her people exiled or in prison by her fathers decree, aunts and uncles arrested and executed, even her own brother Yakov captured by the Nazis wasnt worth a prisoner trade.
Her father controlled her life, who she was permitted to fall in love with, the state too ever a watchful eye reporting back to Stalin, there wasnt an emotion felt, a movement made that wasnt under scrutiny.
A caged child, fed a diet of lies, not even knowing the truth behind her mothers death, Daring to fall in love with a Jewish filmmaker, which her father forbid it seems no shock he was sent to labor camps.
There was an arranged marriage, producing her daughter Katya, There was a deep love for an ill Indian man, whom she met while in hospital for her own treatment, of course she wasnt allowed to marry him.
Within the novel as in life, she journeys to India to scatter his ashes upon his passing, With her fathers death, the only release was to make a new home, to become someone else and remaining in her homeland was an impossibility.
“Svetlanas entry into our marital orbit was something neither Martha nor I ever recovered from, Our own personal Cold War, you might say” of course the story fictionalized a romance between Peter and Svetlana, their intimacy a window into her unsettling life in America.
It would be a spot of happiness were it true too, Here, she will never escape being her fathers daughter, not even by marrying Sid and giving birth to an American son.
We follow her tortured path, living with rumors about her Russian children, Katya and Josef who have forsaken their mother were barred really from speaking to her, as she was a traitor to the Motherland and wonder will they ever reunite but knowing that if the future has defected, then the past keeps its grave hands upon her feet.
We suffer with Peter, who cant help but wonder at the woman behind the eyes and fall in love with her.
A love cultivated in letters and visits, In, Svetlana appears as a star of the international press conference at the Moscow offices of the Soviet Womans National Committee.
With her son Yasha, she shockingly renounces her American citizenship, She was ready to unite her family at last, return to her now grown children, who needed her, It wasnt to last, tumultuous winds were always blowing through her life and again she leaves her homeland,
It would do one good to research the real story behind Svetlana, but this was a fascinating novel regardless of how true to facts the author leaned.
She did seek political asylum and she was invited by Frank Lloyd Wrights widow to visit the studio in Scotsdale, she did marry an architect and have a child with him, but it was a daughter named Olga not a son.
Looking her up, she seems like a very fascinating woman too, John Burnham Schwartz tells us in his authors note that he used his fathers expansive Svetlana file with original material as his father lawyer Alan U.
Schwartz did travel under CIA cover to escort Svetlana Alliluyeva, the only daughter of Josef Stalin into the United States.
She was a part of his family, that much is fact, but it is a fictional novel and his father did not have a love affair with her.
Living in the shadow of such a father as Stalin undeniable monstrous , one can only wonder at what went on inside of her, stuck between cultures, unable to shed the horrors of her father, removed from her children its a hell of a life.
Publication Date: April,
Random House The best thing about this book for me was learning that Frank Lloyd Wright was Welsh which, in all my research on the man, I somehow missed and that knowledge further explained my draw to him I am of Welsh descent.
The rest . OMG what a bunch of poorly written tripe,
At the end of the book, the author makes it clear three times in fact, that this is a work of fiction.
That there is actually very little "historical" accuracy in it at all, He basically took a real life character, a story that his father was briefly involved in his father did indeed escort Svetlana from Zurich to the US, but that is where all that ends for his Dad and her marriage to the heir apparent of FLW and then made up ALL.
THE. REST. For a book that is being touted at "Historical Fiction", that is a lot of fiction that is not really balanced with the brief bits of history that we are barely shown.
It would have served me and anyone else who is interested in this book and can I just tell you to RUN AWAY now to just read the several excellent nonfiction and ACCURATE book about Svetlana's life' both in Russia and in the USA.
This book is told in "journal" form, with an "editor's note" at the beginning of what I am assuming is chapters and it is tedious and jumps around a lot.
There are moments when you think you are going to get more a bigger insight to just who Svetlana is and what makes her tick and then WHAM, all you get is more of the spoiled, depressed, deeply unhappy woman that the author has created to further his story along it is MUCH better for her to be sad and tortured as to further her illicitness and stupidness with Peter and eventually you realize that it is not enhancing the story at all or that finishing the book will benefit anyone.
I DID finish this part of me kept hoping that it would get better, It did not. And all I feel right now is the feeling that I wasted two days that I could have been reading something else that was way more spectacular and amazing than this was.
Thank you too NetGalley and Random House for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
.stars. This novel, which follows the life and defection to the U, S. of Joseph Stalin's only daughter inand the U, S. lawyer who helped her do it, really left a mark on me, Wow what a complex and conflicted woman and time in history! She was obviously not an easy person and made various disastrous decisions, which haunted her the rest of her life.
But she was also bright and sympathetic a woman who wished to escape her father's legacy and past and lived in numerous places.
You really get the emotional sense of her decisions on her, and her children, and those of Peter Horvath, the lawyer in the book who falls for her.
Fact amp fiction are intertwined in this story to a fascinating effect, I feel sliced open knowing what she struggled with, A mix of Russian and American who could not escape her family relations she was a witness to history.
The Red Daughter was a disappointment, I love Schwartz's previous novels especially The Commoner so I was really excited to read his take on the life of Joseph Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, who left the USSR in the lates, "defecting" to the United States.
Svetlana was a fascinating and extremely complicated woman so historical fiction about her Yes, please! But it's not historical fiction if you basically toss out all of the historyit's just fiction.
And while there's nothing wrong with fiction, saying that it's rooted in history because the author's father was Svetlana's lawyer when she came to America doesn't make it historical fiction.
I don't mind a few libertiesthey are necessary, usuallybut this is fiction with Svetlana's name stapled to it, I finished this wishing it had lived up to the blurband it's a shame because I feel like The Red Daughter would have been amazing if it did.
The style of writing is very dry, Also it seems as the plot is missing, Interesting historical fiction. The writing coming from “Lana” was especially potent and beautifully written, I was disappointed that the author did not complete some of the story lines which I felt would have made the book more complete.
However, there are sentences in the book that I will go back to again and again because they were so profound! I've loved all of Schwartz' books, but this may be his best and most ambitious yet.
A mustread. THE RED DAUGHTER, by John Burnham Schwartz, is the historical fiction account of Stalins daughter and her defection to the United States.
Svetlana Alliluyevas story is told, primarily, in the format of her journal and accompanying “Editors Note”s from the perspective of attorney Peter Horvath who brings Alliluyeva to America at the instruction of the CIA.
Svetlana is a woman whose personality is as sharp and as fractured as the shards in a kaleidoscope.
This, supposedly, a result of growing up with the brutal USSR dictator Joseph Stalin as her parent, Once in the States, Alliluyeva is free of Stalins restriction and is faced with a multitude of choices, Her mind can change quickly and without reflection on possible results, We are left with a character often in a manic state,
Will Svetlana find her happiness and all of her dreams fulfilled by her defection Can one ever make lifechanging decisions without suffering any consequences
THE RED DAUGHTER is not a book that I enjoyed.
I found its organization left the story shallow in some respects, Since I love history and historical fiction I was very enthusiastic about reading THE RED DAUGHTER prior to receipt.
However, I think I will need to read another of Mr, Schwartz books to discover his voice as an author,
I thank Random House Publishing for this gift in exchange for an impartial review,
A fascinating and well written story about Svetlana Alliluyeva, Josef Stalin's only daughter, Bright, impulsive, unpredictable and broken, Svetlana defects to the US in the's, leaving her two underage children behind.
Her life is a fascinating but sad adventure and Svetlana never could find a place she felt at home.
It was interesting to read about the many phases of her life, but reading the author's afterward made me feel dismayed and duped.
I recommend reading the entire novel before reading the afterward, I doubt the name Svetlana Alliluyeva means anything to most of us today, but Joseph Stalins daughter was a political hot potato when she defected from Mother Russia during the Cold War.
Whether you know of her, and regardless of your knowledge of the Cold War and Russian history, you will tear through this novelization of Svetlanas life.
Mr. Schwartz writes of her confusing and privileged young life and provides the background to her defection, but the story is primarily that of her life after arriving in the U.
S. , and it is totally engrossing,
Intelligent, guarded and seemingly hard, Svetlana hides her vulnerability and her past, to the extent that she can or is allowed to but her life as her fathers child and as an adult under the rigid control of Soviet society leaves her unprepared for Western life and choices.
She is haunted by the two nearly adult children she left behind the U, S. S. R. tantalizes her with them, and U, S. authorities fear her children will be used to lure or harm her, There is a brief remarriage, and a baby boy born late in Svetlanas life, She adores this child, hides his grandfathers identity from him until he is a young teenager, and there are traumatic consequences.
You will swear that what you have before you is nonfiction reading as fiction, but, no, The strength of this work is the story fiction reading as blisteringly masterful fiction,
Available to everyone on April,
Full Disclosure: A review copy of this book was provided to me by Random House Publishing Group / Random House via NetGalley.
I would like to thank the publisher and the author for providing me this opportunity, All opinions expressed herein are my own, This was my final Willoughby book club selection and I thought it was a good choice for me, I know nothing about Stalins daughter and was keen to find out what happened to her, Really almost nothing did. She defected to the USA, made some bad relationship decisions both before and after that, defected back to the USSR and finally returned to USA where she died.
She was not presented as a particularly likeable person, Her early life wasnt explored enough although it clearly impacted on her middle and later life, I found the book very hard going, mainly because of its style that remote first person musing with incomplete sentences and oddly detailed conversations for what is supposed to be a diary.
I was interested in the Frank Lloyd Wright commune and felt sympathy for Svetlanas children, especially her youngest, born in America and dragged to Russia when he wasto meet his older siblings who didnt really want him or their mother by then.
Less musing and more structured reflection would have made this a better read I think but maybe there really wasnt much to tell.
In, Stalins only daughter Svetlana, defected to the United States, On her journey here from Switzerland, she was accompanied by a young lawyer, who maintained a friendship with her throughout her long life.
That lawyer was the father of the author of this book, This book is fiction, but it is a sad story of a woman tortured by her past and her inability to find home.
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