Review
From the book jacket: Bit by bit, the ravages of age are eroding Marina's
grip on the everyday. And while the elderly Russian woman cannot hold on to
fresh memories — the details of her grown children's lives, the approaching
wedding of her grandchild — her distant past is preserved: vivid images that
rise unbidden of her youth in war-torn Leningrad.
In the fall of 1941, the German army approached the outskirts of Leningrad,
signaling the beginning of what would become a long and torturous siege. During
the ensuing months, the city's inhabitants would brave starvation and the bitter
cold, all while fending off the constant German onslaught. Marina, then a tour
guide at the Hermitage Museum, along with other staff members, was instructed to
take down the museum's priceless masterpieces for safekeeping, yet leave the
frames hanging empty...
Beyond the Book
Debra Dean worked as an actress in the New York theater for nearly a decade before
opting for the life of a writer and teacher. She lives with her husband in
Seattle, Washington. She says that the inspiration behind her first novel
was a PBS series on the Hermitage Museum in 1995. The following day she recorded
in her journal,
"I was particularly
struck by one incident which might make a story (even a novel, but for the
research)."
The story she referred to was about a former staff
member of the Hemitage who, like nearly 2000 other staff and their families, spent the
winter of 1941 living in the basement of the museum while the Nazis besieged the
city. Millions of pieces of art had been evacuated but, as a pledge that
the art would...
