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The Patriots

Audiobook
3 of 3 copies available
3 of 3 copies available
A debut novel by acclaimed story writer Sana Krasikov that examines the effects of the Cold War on three generations of one Jewish American family, from the 1930s to the present. Florence Fein grows up in Brooklyn in the 1930s, to a family that is gaining a foothold in the middle class. At City College she becomes engaged politically with the left-leaning student groups, and eventually, in the midst of the Depression, she takes a job with a trade organization that has a position for her in Moscow. There, she falls in love with another expatriate American and has a son. Soon after, Florence is sent to a work camp and her son to an orphanage. The novel alternates between her story; the story of her son Julian, from his time in the orphanage to his emigration to the States with his family as a Refusenik and his eventual return to Moscow as an oil executive to investigate his mother's past; and the story of Julian's son Lenny, an American entrepreneur who is excited about the financial opportunities to be found in the new Russian marketplace.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 21, 2016
      Three generations of a Russian-American Jewish family are caught in the turmoil of the Soviet Union and its aftermath in Krasikov’s capacious, exhausting novel. In 1933, the headstrong young Brooklynite Florence Fein meets Soviet engineer Sergey Sokolov through her work at Amtorg, the unofficial Soviet trade mission in the U.S. After a summer affair, she follows Sergey back to the Old World, dreaming of a more equitable society; the reality she finds in the city of Magnitogorsk looks more like “appalling sanitation... endless hunger... bullying superiors.” Journeying on to Moscow, she begins to make a new life with a new love—a fellow expatriate lured by the Soviet promise of the future—but that life is soon imperiled by Stalin’s purges, as arrests, interrogations, and executions terrorize the population. By shifting frequently among narrators and time periods, Krasikov suggests that the perils of Russian life are perennial; in 2008, Florence’s adult son, Julian, now living in the U.S. and working for an oil company, returns to Moscow and finds himself faced not only with pervasive corruption, but with the possibility that his own son, Lenny, may be endangered by the unsavory business deal he’s been tasked to execute. Krasikov aims for a cubist take on the Soviet century, touching on orphanages, labor camps, universities, and the theater. The plot lags and the prose is awkward, but readers may discover some interesting details of the time and place through the extensive research Krasikov implements into the story.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Groom, who is best known as the author of FORREST GUMP, has pegged together a collective biography of Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams, which describes how three men from diverse backgrounds were able to work together to bring about our nation after the end of the War of Independence. Many audiobook listeners consider George Guidall to be the standard by which all other narrators are judged. He certainly does not disappoint in this production. His resonant voice is clear, a bit staccato in intonation, but still quite splendid and worth one's time. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

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