โAn unforgettable story of love, survival and the power of imagination in the most tragic circumstances. Elegant and poetic.โ โIsabel Allende, New York Times bestselling author of Zorro
The ravages of age are eroding Marina's grip on the everyday. An elderly Russian woman now living in America, she cannot hold on to fresh memoriesโthe details of her grown children's lives, the approaching wedding of her grandchildโyet her distant past is miraculously preserved in her mind's eye.
Vivid images of her youth in war-torn Leningrad arise unbidden, carrying her back to the terrible fall of 1941, when she was a tour guide at the Hermitage Museum and the German army's approach signaled the beginning of what would be a long, torturous siege on the city. As the people braved starvation, bitter cold, and a relentless German onslaught, Marina joined other staff members in removing the museum's priceless masterpieces for safekeeping. As the Luftwaffe's bombs pounded the proud, stricken city, Marina built a personal Hermitage in her mindโa refuge that would stay buried deep within her, until she needed it once more. . . .
โExtraordinary. . . . Deanโs exquisite prose shimmers . . . illuminating us to the notion that art itself is perhaps our most necessary nourishment.โ โChang-Rae Lee, New York Times bestselling author of Aloft and Native Speaker
โA poignant tale.โ โBooklist, starred review
โDean writes with passion and compelling drama.โ โPeople
โRare is the novel that creates that blissful forgot-you-were-reading experience . . . but that is precisely what Debra Dean has achieved with her image-rich book.โ โSeattle Post-Intelligencer
โPoetic.โ โSan Francisco Chronicle Book Review
โ[A] heartfelt debut.โ โNew York Times Book Review
โRemarkableโโ NPR, Nancy Pearl Book Review