A Russian Requiem Roland Merullo | ISBN : 0-316-56789-2

A Russian Requiem

Author: Roland Merullo

Publisher: Little Brown & Company

Publication Date: 01 September, 1993

ISBN: 9780316567893

Pages: xii, 356

Subjects: General, Suspense

Available as: , Trade Cloth, 978-0-316-56789-3 Trade Paper, 978-0-9833139-3-9 E-Book - , 978-0-9833139-4-6

Description:

"Readers accustomed to - and perhaps tired of - novels in which Russia is portrayed as little more than a stage for CIA and KGB operatives will be pleasantly surprised and challenged by A Russian Requiem. Roland Merullo's multilayered second book, part novel of suspense, part love story, uses Russia in a totally unpredictable and refreshing way: as the setting for a profound exploration of the relationship between national and personal drama, public and private history." "A Russian Requiem takes place entirely in the two weeks preceding the failed right-wing coup of August 1991, a time of great uncertainty and unease. Anton Czesich, an American in his late forties who has spent a mostly disillusioning career working overseas for the U.S. government, arrives in Moscow to take charge of a volatile American food distribution program. Julie Stirvin, the love of his youth and his life, works at the American Embassy and is in charge of administering that program. She and Czesich have their own history, their own protracted cold war." "Many miles away, in the mining center of Vostok, Soviet bureaucrat Sergei Propenko, a former champion boxer, is in the midst of his own midlife crisis - partly personal, partly political. Modest and decent, surrounded by a household of strong-willed and politically astute women, Propenko is pinched between his traditional ambitions and concern for the safety of his very untraditional daughter, Lydia." "The food distribution program binds all these lives together against a real-life provincial Russian background the likes of which American literature has rarely seen. As Czesich's and Propenko's fates intersect and intertwine, it becomes clear that both men are partially paralyzed by the same suspicions and fears that crippled Soviet-American relations for so long." "A Russian Requiem is a page-turner with depth, a finely crafted novel about the small piece of history each of us bears and the way our intimate lives reflect and echo the politics of nations. Speckled with humor and irony, rich in both psychological and political drama, it carries the reader on a post-cold war voyage through the Russian - and American - soul."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

PW Publishers Weekly

Review Source: Publishers Weekly

Review Date: 1993-08-02

Against the backdrop of the failed August 1991 putsch that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and to the ascendency of Boris Yeltsin's Russian Republic, Merullo skillfully explores the lives of ordinary people caught in a dramatic transference of power. Two weeks before the attempted coup, middle-aged American diplomat Anton Czesich flies to the provincial city of Yostok to coordinate a Western hunger relief program. Jaded and cynical about politics, Czesich remains a hopeless romantic when it comes to personal honor; he ignores embassy directives to put the project on hold because of the unstable political situation and hooks up with his Russian counterpart in the relief effort, Sergei Propenko, who is unaware of the change in the U.S. position. The narrative segues between the men's troubled personal lives and political reality; they are tested by a riot over food distribution and an attack by Communist hardliners on Propenko's reform-minded daughter. While the novel never quite captures the excitement and turbulence of the stormy days that ended Soviet power (or the delightful quirkiness of Merullo's first book, Leaving Losapas ), it is smoothly written and multifaceted, solidly depicting the isolation and poverty of a city far removed from Moscow and insightfully exploring the psyches of individuals caught in the conflicts between their ideals and their careers. ( Sept. ) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved