The Madonnas of Leningrad
by Debra Dean
★★★☆
Marina works at the Hermitage
in Leningrad
during World War II. Her fiancé Dmitri leaves to fight at the front in the war,
while Marina is
trapped in the Russian city during the Siege of Leningrad. She and her aunt and
uncle must move into the Hermitage (the art museum seen above) with dozens of others. They are all staving
to death, trying only to survive.
The secondary plot deals with Dmitri and Marina’s adult daughter Helen and her
struggle with her parents’ declining health. Marina has Alzheimer’s and as she looses her
recent memories, those long buried memories from the war come to the surface. The
combination of the war story and modern day disconnect between children and
their parents works well. Immigrants who survived horrific events during the
war don’t often want to rehash their heartbreak, but their children may not
understand how their current actions have been formed by their past experiences
if they never share them.
I felt like the book was a bit short. There are so many more
details that could have been included. I loved learning about the real events
that happened during the siege. It’s a fictional story, but the author did some
excellent research. I had no idea about this whole part of WWII and I’m still
curious about it.
BOTTOM LINE: A short but powerful story of the Siege of
Leningrad. Read it if you are interested in learning more about WWII in Russia.
"Hunger has eaten away the veneer of civilization, and
people are not themselves."
"Over the years, they have grown together, their flesh
and their thoughts twining so closely that he cannot imagine the person he
might be apart from her."
