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Summary
Summary
Marya is a ballet dancer born of privilege; her mother, Sveta, is the most popular ballet dancer in the Soviet Union: the regime's glamorous face to the west. When her mother disappears, Marya and her father suspect their lives are in danger and arrange a harrowing defection. But Marya has a secret - like her mother, she can see glimpses of the future: a gift coveted by the powers-that-be in the Soviet Union. Worse, she is sure her father is doomed to be murdered at their new home in Brighton beach.
Author Notes
Elizabeth Kiem studied Russian language and literature at Columbia University and lived in Russia immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Her nonfiction work can be read all over the world wide web. Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy is her first novel. She lives in New York.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Debut novelist Kiem's title pays apt homage to John le Carre while delineating the roles 17-year-old ballerina Marina plays throughout this dark, complicated book. Opening in Moscow with Brezhnev's death in November 1982, the story soon moves to the "Russia by the Sea" neighborhood of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Marina and her father escape there following the State Psychiatric Directorate's institutionalization of her mother, Sveta, a celebrated Bolshoi dancer, who had a vision of a terrible past event the regime must keep hidden. Leaving behind a privileged lifestyle for a cramped, impoverished existence in America, Marina and her father cannot shake the suspicion and danger Sveta's vision put them under. As Marina struggles to learn English, make a place for herself in the dance world of Lincoln Center, and acclimate to American teenage life (while keeping her identity secret), she is tormented by anxiety over her mother's fate. The story is heavy and sometimes difficult to follow, but Kiem successfully creates the mood of the oppressive, fearful state of Communist Russia that persists outside its borders, and builds levels of intrigue that lead to a devastating climax. Ages 14-up. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The disappearance of a star ballerina in Soviet Russia shatters the life of her daughter. Bright, 17-year-old Marya is the daughter of the Bolshoi's star ballerina and her scientist husband, and she's a dancer herself. In the early 1980s Soviet Union, Svetlana Dukovskaya's celebrity translates into a comfortable life for herself and her family. Indeed, she has been called a "cultural patriot of the Motherland," and she expects Marya to follow her path. Her sudden disappearance throws Marya, and snatches of overheard conversation cause a sense of unease that is verified when Marya and her father learn Sveta has been institutionalized. Fleeing, Marya and her father settle in Brooklyn's Little Odessa, where they attempt to get news about Sveta. Marya enrolls in high school and takes classes at Julliard and also begins a relationship with Ben, a son of Russian migrs. Ben shares his love of music with her and becomes a source of strength, as her father and his newly arrived best friend seem caught up in intrigue. This is sophisticated storytelling with complex characterization and details that provide color and texture. The pacing is somewhat uneven, but there are enough twists to surprise and engage readers to the end. A compelling portrait of a young woman on the verge of adulthood, caught up in the domestic secrets of her parents and the enmity of two countries. (Historical fiction. 14 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Marya is a talented dancer like her mother, Sveta, but they are government pets in a strictly controlled society full of secrecy, where one small misstep can lead to sudden and permanent consequences. When their ruler dies and Sveta vanishes, Marya and her father plot an escape. But this is not a dystopian fantasy. Marya lives in Moscow in 1982, and like many Jews during the Cold War, she and her father immigrate to Brooklyn, settling in Little Odessa under assumed names. When Marya's uncle Gosha arrives, bringing with him a suitcase full of potentially dangerous secrets, Marya weighs the value of the information against the ease of staying under the radar, all the while doubting her father's grip on reality. But in a world where nothing makes sense, what is sanity? Despite the dire circumstances, Marya's passion for music and desire for a normal teenage life shine through. Flipping through new record albums is just as suspenseful and full of discovery as a chase scene with guns drawn. This atmospheric, suspenseful story is one of devotion and deception, innocence and independence, friendship and love, music and dance, immigration and coming of age. With its language and overall sense of unease, this debut should have multifaceted appeal.--Booth, Heather Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
WHEN I lived in Moscow in my 20s, I'd often pass nervous young men standing in the metro station, holding flowers and waiting for their dates to show up. Meeting in the metro was a Russian tradition, and like Russia itself it seemed exotic, romantic and rife with drama. I arrived in tears to several of my own rendezvous because of confusion over the Cyrilliconly metro signs, and I missed others entirely. Add K.G.B. agents in long black cars creeping along snowy streets, and you have the formula for two new romantic suspense novels for young adults. "Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy," Elizabeth Kiem's first novel , tells the story of a teenage ballerina who flees the Bolshoi for Brighton Beach in New York , carrying a dossier of state secrets. In "The Boy on the Bridge," by Natalie Standiford ("How to Say Goodbye in Robot," "The Secret Tree" ), an American girl on a student exchange program in Leningrad falls for a mysterious Russian boy . Both books are set in 1982 , a grim time of food shortages and implacable bureaucracy. "Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy" avoids Brezhnevian gloom by going the cold-war-mystery route (the title is of course a hat tip to John le Carré , master of the genre). While Marina is perfecting fouetté turns at the Bolshoi, her mother, a celebrated ballerina , disappears; her family believes she is investigating a government atrocity. Marina and her scientist father escape, taking a terrifying journey by plane and boat, first to Europe and then to Brighton Beach . The Russian expatriate community there embraces them, but Marina has to navigate high school and break into New York's ballet world while fending offthe attentions of a male dancer she suspects may be a K.G.B. informant interested in her mother's secrets. Seen though Marina's eyes, Americans seem very peculiar; they smile with their mouths open and stand up at parties. And her crash course in Western rock music leads to some amusing observations. "I'm not sure why. That's just how it is," her friend Ben says, struggling to explain the rationale behind certain band names. "The Kinks, the Cars, the Cure, but just plain Rush. Journey, too - no the. And you can say the Stones leaving out 'Rolling' but not the Heads. It's the Talking Heads . . . or sometimes without the - just 'Talking Heads.' " Marina takes it all in with a stiffdignity that's touchingly plausible. The story moves along so quickly and eventfully that Kiem's plotting starts to feel a little slapdash. Marina has clairvoyant episodes that don't seem structurally necessary; supporting characters are too hastily sketched; the ultimate significance of a germ-warfare dossier collected by the mother is never revealed. The action culminates in a tangle of bad guys and intrigue that would leave even the most paranoid K.G.B. agent scratching his head. The romance at the heart of "The Boy on the Bridge" serves as a nice study in the risks of crosscultural love affairs. Laura, a Brown University student in Leningrad for a semester, meets Alyosha, a Russian art student turned sign painter , on the street . The chance encounter feels suspect. Standiford reminds readers that at the time, ordinary Russians weren't allowed to fraternize with Americans , who were nonetheless sought out as a source of foreign goods or social cachet. But Alyosha is cute, and Laura is lonely and unsatisfied by her back-home boyfriend's lazy - and hilariously cryptic - letters . After Laura falls in love, she has to hide her relationship with Alyosha from her Russian roommate and minder, Ninel ("Lenin" spelled backward). And ominously, government agents seem to be following her on the street. Standiford gives a nuanced portrayal of why a romance between people from such different cultures might be appealing. Laura is touchingly moved by Alyosha's attentiveness. When he shaves offhis mustache because he thinks Laura might like it, "the idea of a boy doing something just for her was so unfamiliar she couldn't quite relax." For Alyosha, marrying Laura offers a way out of the Soviet Union . The racheted-up marriage plot keeps the story moving and makes up for the slight flatness of Standiford's narration. I wanted to hear more of the casual, sarcastic voice Laura uses in the personal essays she writes for school. And Standiford dodges some of the cultural problems a couple like this might face. Alyosha's chivalrous ways would come with assumptions about gender roles that a young American woman might well reject. Both Standiford and Kiem have lived in Russia, and succeed at evoking the bleakness and nostalgic charms of the early 1980s there. The results are enjoyably escapist. For teenagers enamored with the Russia of literature and film, who want something slightly more contemporary, vot, dva ("here are two"). DANCER, DAUGHTER, TRAITOR, SPY By Elizabeth Kiem 264 pp. Soho Teen. $17.99. (Young adult; ages 14 and up) THE BOY ON THE BRIDGE By Natalie Standiford 248 pp. Scholastic. $17.99. (Young adult; ages 14 and up) Americans seem very peculiar; they smile with their mouths open and stand up at parties. Valerie Stivers is the author of "Blood Is the New Black: A Novel."