About the Book:

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 on the walls – a symbol of the artworks’ eventual return. To hold on to sanity when the Luftwaffe’s bombs began to fall, she burned to memory, brushstroke by brushstroke, these exquisite artworks: the nude figures of women, the angels, the serene Madonnas that had so shortly before gazed down upon her. She used them to furnish a “memory palace,” a personal Hermitage in her mind to which she retreated to escape terror, hunger, and encroaching death. A refuge that would stay buried deep within her, until she needed it once more.” Moving back and forth in time between the Soviet Union and contemporary America, The Madonnas of Leningrad is a portrait of war and remembrance, of the power of love, memory, and art to offer beauty, grace, and hope in the face of overwhelming despair.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This is a book that at first I didn’t like. The character development seemed very shallow, and the story is told from a disjointed, shifting point of view. This made it very confusing at first, until I realized how this writing style added so completely to the development of the main character. Marina suffers from Alzheimer’s — and the method used to tell this story helped the reader to understand, and see, not only the frustration that she went through, but the frustration that this disease created for all those people around her.

The story is beautiful, and offers a very interesting juxtaposition between the loss and desperation of the Leningrad siege, during World War II, and a wedding of one of Marina’s grandchildren. And it is an interesting picture into the art world, as the museums were evacuated just in front of the Nazi’s lock down of the city.

It also looks at the love between a young couple, separated by the war, and how it survived through impossible times, as well as the courage it took for a woman to survive a nightmare — and go on to a life worth living. Only to find in her old age that she had to relive the nightmare continuously, to survive in the midst of a living hell, and be unable to remember the immediate memories, when she can clearly remember all the horrors in the distant past.

This story gives the reader a real appreciation for the struggles faced by those consumed by Alzheimer’s, and how hard it is for their families and friends as well.  The shifting, disjointed nature of the story allows the reader to step into the mind of one who struggles with this disease, and know what it feels like to have your mind so completely disrupted.  And then to compound this tragedy — the only memories that are left to Marina are those that are horrifying, and disturbing in the extreme.  She is left reliving a war that was her worst nightmare the first time around, and now it haunts her constantly, with very little relief.

Ms. Dean has proven to be an excellent author, with a gift for putting the reader into the life of her characters, and allowing them to live, and experience through another’s life.  Though this story is short, it is powerful in its presentation, and the feel of the book is all consuming. This is a book I would highly recommend, particularly for those who love either romance stories, or historical novels regarding World War II.

Tags: Art, Historical Fiction, Loss, Love, Memory, Nazi, Survivor, World War II

Category: Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II