In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Book Summary and Reviews of Iron Curtain by Vesna Goldsworthy

Iron Curtain by Vesna Goldsworthy

Iron Curtain

A Love Story

by Vesna Goldsworthy

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Readers' Rating:
  • Published:
  • Feb 2023, 336 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

East and West collide in a "timely" and "bittersweet tale of loyalty, love, and the siren call of freedom" (Rebecca Abrams, Financial Times)

Milena Urbanska is a red princess living in a Soviet satellite state in the 1980s. She enjoys limitless luxury and limited freedom; the end of the Cold War seems unimaginable. When she meets Jason, a confident but politically naive British poet, they fall into bed together. Before long, Milena is planning her escape. She follows Jason to London, where she's shocked to find herself living in bohemian poverty. The rented apartment is dingy, the food disgusting, and Jason's family withholding, but at least there are no hidden cameras recording her every move. As she adjusts to her new life, however, Milena discovers the dark side of Jason's idea of freedom.

With cool wit and tender precision, Vesna Goldsworthy delivers a razor-sharp vision of two worlds on the brink of change, amidst the failures of family and state. Iron Curtain is a sly, elegant comedy of manners that challenges the myths we tell ourselves.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"A gripping tragedy about love and betrayal set near the end of the Cold War." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Goldsworthy offers a witty and perceptive novel of love in the twilight of the Soviet Union." - Publishers Weekly

"Atmospheric and gloriously vivid.…The pages fly by, and Goldsworthy's careful scrutiny brings warmth and sympathy to her tale of belonging and betrayal. Tense, brooding and often hilarious, Iron Curtain finds bright sparks as well as bleakness in the cold war's dying embers." - The Guardian (UK)

"Excellent… a comedy of manners that is nevertheless fraught with tension.… Goldsworthy captures the human perspective of life in the cold war superbly and sympathetically." - Observer (UK)

"Superb.… The divided continent has been at the heart of countless novels over the decades, but few can have been as cleverly crafted or better told than Vesna Goldsworthy's Iron Curtain.… Brilliantly written." - Sunday Times (UK)

"A wonderful, perfectly pitched novel: full of delightful intrigue and wry insight about the human predicament and its unique tensions." - William Boyd, author of Trio

"Vesna Goldsworthy's masterly novel retains the grace and resilience of literary art while wading deep into the most riveting human drama.… Goldsworthy is at once the most impartial and the tenderest of observers, a bold dramatist and a subtle humorist, and she has written a book so full of steel and compassion that it stands glitteringly apart." - Rachel Cusk, author of Second Place

"Original and memorable.… A profound understanding of the timeless realities of love, betrayal, and the desire for revenge." - Pat Barker, author of The Women of Troy

"An extraordinary evocation of two wildly contrasted worlds.… Vesna Goldsworthy writes so well!" - Michael Frayn, author of Skios

This information about Iron Curtain was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Amber H. (Asheville, NC)

Loved this book!
I loved this book - right from the start I was drawn into Milena and her story. The beginning is a bit dark, but that is relevant context for the rest of the story. I felt so many emotions reading Iron Curtain - it is sad, funny, disturbing, exciting, confusing, the list goes on. The pace moves quickly and this book is beautifully written. Highly recommend!

Becky H. (Manassas, VA)

An intriguing and timely novel
IRON CURTAIN is a delight to read. It has humor, pathos, tension, fear, love, loyalty, tragedy, responsibility, faithfulness and patriotism. Milena and Jason, as well as all the supporting characters, are well drawn, and accurate. The descriptions of the two countries reflect the notions of how each country sees itself and the other. The book covers the differences between perception and reality, especially as it relates to how communist countries view the west and vice versa.
My daughter lived for several years in a former Soviet Republic. I completely understand Milena's decisions. The notion of freedom has varying degrees of reality: freedom from want, from decision making, to choose, to make mistakes, and others. Where and what is "home" is also a point that is covered well by this book.
One of my favorite characters was Clarissa. She had depths of character that slowly emerged as the book progressed.
IRON CURTAIN would make a great book for discussion groups. I highly recommend it, even with its slow start.
5 of 5 stars

Irene H. (Saugerties, NY)

Iron Curtain a love story; Vesna Goldsworthy
The spate of stories in which girl meets boy, girl becomes pregnant; girl runs away with boy and all live happily ever after has departed along with their attendant holiday symbols. If you're seeking a wonderfully creative twist on this trope, Iron Curtain, a love story, is just the book for you. With her tongue firmly in her cheek, the author speaks to us in the person of Milena Urbanska, the cherished daughter of a "hero of the Bolshevik Revolution." By the 1980's, her father is a highly placed official in one of the satellite states behind the Iron Curtain living in a mansion appropriated from the time of the Czar and peopled by servants and a wife interested in Western fashion, jewelry, and Russian Vodka. The author, Vesna Goldsworthy, employs enough irony, satire, and black humor in filling out her characters to give book clubs several months of analysis and discussion. Unlike dystopian plot twists which leave the reader deeply sad in comparing the ideals of the Revolution and the actuality of its lived daily events, Goldsworthy uses Milena's voice to both accept the constraints of her society while also mocking the gap between what could have been, and what is, in the reality of the Cold War. The romantic plot twist which brings a soviet princess out of her country to live in the alleged land of "milk and honey" with Jason, her English/Irish Marxist poet, takes Milena along the yellow brick road to a place of her own crafting where she shapes the life she wants using her own creativity and grit.

Gunta Krasts Voutyras

The Pride and Strength of a Young Woman.
This is a spine chilling tome. Not so much the description of the Communist Regime. Their snooping into private lives, their control of everyone and the soul destroying of citizens who do not walk the line. The lack of any kind of freedom for any citizens. The lack of goods and food. Lack of housing. Horrible living conditions.

It is the story of Milena Urbanska. Her personal strength, her very controlled emotions, Her ability to make the decision to leave, defect, her country because of a man she loves. Not a political belief. The inner strength that allows her to go through an abortion totally alone. The performance of this deed is not known to the father. In many ways he is child like. Of course Milena realizes this. Yet she loves him.

Her father is a top man in the Communist Party and there is nothing he does not know about his people, in particular about his daughter. It is within his power to assist her or block her. Milena remains true to herself. She puts all herself into marriage of an Englishman, lives in London and literally gives up all she knows of her culture, abandons her parents and works very hard to support the two of them with not too much understanding or appreciation from her husband. When I got to the end of the book my esteem, compassion, admiration, as well as thoughts of needing more women like Milena in order to create a better world was upmost in my thoughts.

Karen S. (Orlando, FL)

Open the Iron Curtain
Vesna Goldsworthy presents a beautiful story of a young woman's experience of love, but more importantly her discovery of resilience and strength. This historical fiction offers a peek behind the iron curtain of 1980s Russia through the eyes of a socialite named Milena, who decides to follow her heart and leave her privileged life. The pace felt a bit slow at the beginning but quickly picks up as the story unfolds. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading it again. I highly recommend Iron Curtain!

Patricia G. (Washington, DC)

An authentic narrative voice
What struck me most about "Iron Curtain", Vesna Goldworthy's newest novel, is how authentic the narrative voice sounded. Written in the first person of Milena, the daughter of a powerful official in a Soviet-satellite country, the book describes her two-part story—her life previous to meeting and falling in love with Jason, a struggling British poet visiting Milena's country as part of an international poetry showcase—and afterwards. I was intrigued throughout the book at Milena's preternatural steely calm describing her privileged, although highly controlled life and family, and the completely opposite situation she then finds herself in with Jason in a new and very foreign country. In spite of this tone, the reader can really feel Milena as a sympathetic and fully formed person; this is no dry documentary of Soviet-style life and the evils of the west. Goldworthy is a talented writer, and packed a lot of descriptive narrative into a slightly offbeat, opposites-attract-and-it-doesn't-work-out love story. I've already purchased one of her previous novels, because I really enjoy discovering good novelists that are "new to me".

...19 more reader reviews

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Vesna Goldsworthy

Vesna Goldsworthy was born in Belgrade and now lives in London. She is the author of six widely translated books, including the bestselling memoir Chernobyl Strawberries and novels Monsieur Ka and Gorsky, which was nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...
  • Book Jacket
    The MANIAC
    by Benjamin Labatut
    The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut is an ambitious work that falls squarely into the category of fiction...
  • Book Jacket: Blood Test
    Blood Test
    by Charles Baxter
    Brock Hobson is a loving single father, a Sunday School teacher, and an upstanding and honest ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Libby Lost and Found
    by Stephanie Booth

    Libby Lost and Found is a book for people who don't know who they are without the books they love.

Who Said...

The only real blind person at Christmas-time is he who has not Christmas in his heart.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.