This is a beautiful strange mixture of a sad, poignant tale of a beautiful young women in Leningrad in 1941 awaiting the German takeover and her life now as an old woman who is fighting dementia and remembering the horror and beauty of that time.

The author has a wonderful grasp of art history and critique and uses that knowledge extensively as she tells of Marina's memories of that time in Russia when just before the imminent arrival of the Germans, she was a docent at the Hermitage Museum. The recollection of these countless paintings is her link to the past and her link to her sanity.

It is a beautiful prosaic story.

We ( my wife and I ) both found the Madonnas of Leningrad to be an excellent, gripping and highly informative book. It is a complex tale, skillfully woven together, touching on Alzheimer disease, Russian history ( The German Siege of Leningrad), and the details of great art works. It has kindled in us a great desire to visit the Hermitage and St. Petersburg. More than that, it has inspired us to buy several more copies to give to friends who we thought would greatly enjoy reading this very well crafted novel.
I recommend it highly!

I really enjoyed this book. The main characters are well written and the subject matter very interesting. I also went on line to the Hermitage Museum's web site to look at some of the paintings mentioned in the book. I liked the way the author took the reader back and forth through time in the Marina's life. Not only is this a book on what happened during the siege of Leningrad but also about aging and love of family.

I never finished the book. I just couldn't get into it. But it did arrive on time.

What a beautifully written, touching first novel! Ms. Dean's gift of moving back and forth, from past to present (and occasionally blending the two) was so effective in illustrating Marina's descent into Alzheimer's. As one who is currently experiencing the natural decline of an elderly father, I found comfort and some degree of understanding in the author's treatment of Marina's way of living in the past and experiencing confusion in the present. The vivid descriptions of Russian life during the siege of Leningrad and the priceless treasures in the Hermitage reminded me of why I love art history. Altogether, an extremely satisfying read...I look forward to the author's next work!

This inspiring story of remarkable endurance proved to be one of the most pleasurable reads for me this year. "The Madonnas of Leningrad" is a poignant tale of one woman's harrowing experiences during the 900-day Siege of Leningrad in WWII, alternating with events in her present-day life.

In 1941, Marina Krasnova is a young museum guide at the magnificent Hermitage Museum. Anticipating German attack, the museum staff work night and day to pack the priceless masterpieces to be transported to safety. When the bombings begin, the staff and their families seek refuge in the cellars of the museum, and not long after, starvation, disease, and desperation reduce their numbers. To escape the suffering of their daily lives, Marina and her friend, Anya, build in their minds a "memory palace," burning into their memories each room and the artworks that formerly graced them. As she walks from room to room, Marina sees past the empty gilt frames and sees again the grandeur of each painting-- the Rembrandts, the Da Vincis, the Carravagios, and hundreds more. To Marina, they were all part of her life and what sustained her in the darkest days. Amidst the bombings, she continues to hope that she will once again see her beloved Dmitri, the soldier she has fallen in love with and the father of the child she is carrying.

In the present day, Marina, now Mrs. Buriakov and in her 80s, is ravaged by Alzheimer's. Her memories of her children and recent events are in tatters, but memories of her Leningrad days are as vivid as always. As her faculties continue to degenerate, her mind takes her back to the days of the siege--back to her "memory palace" and the extraordinary paintings and events that defined her life. Her husband and children grow increasingly concerned, and when she disappears one day, it becomes the catalyst for her daughter, Elena's, search for her own identity and meaning in life, as well as a deeper understanding of her mother.

As expected, there is a wealth of art woven within, but one doesn't need to be an aficionado to appreciate the story. The numerous descriptions of the artworks facilitate our understanding of Marina and we identify with her desperate need to hang on to something, no matter that it's intangible, to survive. These masterpieces symbolize hope--that their return to the Hermitage someday is also the return of peace to Marina's Leningrad. The story does not merely contrast the younger Marina (when her mind saves her) and the older Marina (when her mind fails her). More importantly, it illustrates the power of the mind and spirit to provide courage and hope in even the bleakest of circumstances. It's a moving story written concisely yet descriptively, though not overdone, and particularly evocative in the chapters that deal with wartime hardships. Ms. Dean's debut was definitely worth this reader's effort and the few hours spent with her "madonnas" have been a delight.

I could not put this book down. It is beautifully written, and you end up caring so much for the characters. Well researched, well thought out, well written.......what a find. I hope Dean writes more.

Marina Buriakov is an 82-year old woman who is slowly losing her battle with Alzheimer's. During a trip to Drake Island for her graddaughter Katie's wedding, Marina often finds herself reminiscing about the past - a past she and husband Dmitri have chosen not to share with their two children, Andrei and Elena (Helen).

During World War II, Marina, a tour guide at the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad, worked to save the Soviet Union's priceless artifacts. However, she, like millions of other residents of the city, experienced the horrors of starvation, air raids, and death as the Germans bombed everything they could find. By creating a "memory palace" - a way of organizing her thoughts, Marina is able to remember the Hermitage in its pre-war glory.

The story frequently jumps between the present and the past, and is told through the frustration of Marina's jumbled mind. While it is a beautiful read, it can be a bit confusing at times deciphering between dreams and reality. And, while the story itself is one of heartbreak and hope, it just didn't grab me as much as I thought it would.

"The Madonnas of Leningrad" is a great book, but not one that riveted my attention like other World War II novels. Definitely spend a day with it, and then decide for yourself.

I very much enjoyed this story, told in parallel, of two parts of a woman's life. The book began with alternating chapters set, first in the youth of the central character, and then in her senescence. Gradually and artfully the two merged giving an interesting impression of what the inner life of an Alzheimer's patient might be.
The life-long love and devotion of her partner was touching. The contrast between her life in Leningrad during the siege by the Nazis and her life in the Pacific Northwest as an old woman was well drawn and not over-drawn. The book was a thoroughly pleasurable read.

I often think people give 5 stars too freely, but this is a book that truly deserves it. For me it is usually the characters that carry or drown a novel, but in this case the characters themselves are not too important. They remain as placeholders in a novel that although achingly detailed in its description of the war and its effects on the citizens has a dreamlike quality to it. The bits descibing certain artwork fit seamlessly and appropriately into the narrative and are pieces of art themselves. A beautiful novel celebrating the gloriousness of little things backdropped by both a period of horrible wartime and ordinary life for an impact rarely seen in debut novels. Alzheimers is shown as heartbreaking yet with hidden benefits.

I started reading about the siege of Leningrad a few years ago while doing research on Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. Then I read a few novels having to do with life during the siege; the hardships, squalor, etc. This one tops them all ... as it relates to life here (in the U.S.) so many years after the siege. A seige survivor's Alzheimers and its affect on her family. Just wonderful stuff. Brava!

I've thought about this book repeatedly since I finished it last week, a testament to how deeply it affected me. There is much to ponder, particularly the power of memory and the profundity of its loss. Marina is in her 80s, struggling with the early stages of Alzheimers disease. As her short term memory begins to falter, she drifts back to the dramatic years of her youth during the siege of Leningrad in WWII. Beautifully written, with nice transitions from the present to the past and back again without disruption.

So what didn't I like? I found it unlikely (but not impossible) that her children would know so little of their mother's past, and I felt the story would be richer had there been more exploration of Marina's present circumstances. That having been said, I highly recommend this novel for its originality and its loving depiction of the waning years of a life.

The Madonnas of Leningrad, Dean's first novel, won critical acclaim and several awards including the Quill Award for 2006, and ALA Notable Book of the Year 2006. The book will appeal to readers interested in psychological fiction, historical fiction, art history, World War II and Russian history.

Set during the 900 day Siege of Leningrad, (1940 - 1944) Marina, a docent at the Hermitage Museum, lives in the vast museum basement with her family and hundreds of other starving citizens of the city during the Nazi bombings. Increasingly frail and malnourished, she stands watch nightly on the huge roof of the museum buildings spotting enemy aircraft.

The World War II scenes are interwoven with the present-day story of Marina as an old woman living in Seattle, Washington attending a grand-daughter's wedding. Suffering from Alzheimer's disease, Marina's mind floats freely between the clear memories of her past and her confused experience of the present. During the siege, to distract herself from hunger pains, Marina had memorized much of the huge collection of art treasures, creating a "memory mansion" of paintings and sculptures of the great masters of Western European art. The art lives on very clearly in her disease-riddled brain many decades later giving her the pleasure of viewing the art again as she "walks" through the miles of galleries in her mind.
This book took me to a time and place in history about which I knew very little. Visiting the State Hermitage Museum website to see panoramas from the roof overlooking St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) perhaps showing views that Marina looked at every night added to the experience of reading the book.

Someone said, "If you know someone who has Alzheimer's, you do not want to read this book." Absolutely not true! My father-in-law has Alzheimers and I found this book to be incredibly insightful and thoughtful in regards to Alzheimer's. Once I started this book I could not put it down. The way Debra Dean weaves the tales in this book just captured me. It is probably one of the best books I have read. Absolutely incredible. I immediately emailed all of my friends and told them they HAD to read this book! Just lovely!

Someone said, "If you know someone who has Alzheimer's, you do not want to read this book." Absolutely not true! My father-in-law has Alzheimers and I found this book to be incredibly insightful and thoughtful in regards to Alzheimer's. Once I started this book I could not put it down. The way Debra Dean weaves the tales in this book just captured me. It is probably one of the best books I have read. Absolutely incredible. I immediately emailed all of my friends and told them they HAD to read this book! Just lovely!

From the title of the book to every sentence in it I was captivated by the Madonnas of Leningrad.

My father has Alzheimers so I had that personal tie to what was going on also.

Simply a great book that grabbed me and held me through its entirety.

Thanks for writing it and thanks for publishing it!

I was pretty much swept away by this story. I enjoyed the non-linear plotting and all the layering involved. I thought constantly of the film Russian Ark and also a friend who was born in a displaced persons camp where his Russian artist parents ended up after the war. It rang true that the parents, having experienced such horrors, avoided the details with their children.

However, the modern parts of the story seemed perfunctory, particularly in contrast with the richness of the historical portions. That's too bad - it cheats the reader. Marina's daughter lacks passion and intellectual curiosity, which seems false given some of her life choices. I wonder what sort of book it could have been if there were more balance in the presentation of the two eras. My three-star assessment is recognition of a great story idea told half-well: not great literature, not total chick-lit trash, ultimately worth reading.

I work with older adults who are in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, one of the most dreaded possible outcomes of aging. The people I work with certainly have problems with their memories, especially short term memory, but they continue to enjoy conversations, reminiscing, music and art. I would like to think their journey is like Marina's, the heroine of Madonnas of Leningrad.

Marina and Dima live in Seattle and on the weekend which opens the book, they are headed to one of the near-by islands for the wedding of their granddaughter. They didn't always live in Seattle. They met in Marina's new school when they were both eleven, after her parents had been arrested by the secret police in Russia. He protected her and taught her to be quietly defiant. They remained friends until the evening before he headed off to fight the Germans. He asked her to marry him when he returned and they became lovers that night, then he was gone.

Debra Dean's story weaves back and forth between the present and the Siege of Leningrad by the Germans. Her vignettes of the rooms in the Hermitage in Leningrad are startlingly vivid, especially when one realizes that the young Marina is reenacting her tours from memory as she faces the empty frames of the great art which has been sent to safe keeping in the event that the Germans reach Leningrad.

Is the Marina who sits on the ferry on her way to the wedding remembering what we read? Is she remembering the vivid details even as she gazes absently at the water? Even as she wonders who the woman next to her is until the woman calls her Mama. Of course, she remembers, Helen, Elana.

Marina is conscious that "[o]ne of the effects of this deterioration that as the scope of her attention narrows, it also focuses like a magnifying glass on smaller pleasures that have escaped her notice for years. She tried once to point out to Dimitri the bottomless beauty in her glass of tea. It looked like amber with buried embers of light and when held just so, there was a rainbow in the glass that took her breath away."

The day of the wedding, Marina sits on the patio of the hotel and finds herself seeing figures from the past. "Marina reaches for [her daughter-in-law] Naureen's hand and grips it tightly in her own. More distressing than the loss of words is the way that time contracts and fractures and drops her in unexpected places."

In the Hermitage, many of the paintings had religious themes and many of them included the Madonna. When Marina accompanied one of the older women, Anya, through the dark and empty halls, Anya would often stop and pray in front of frames which had held different Madonnas. And although Marina felt religion was for the masses, she too began furtively offering prayers. Life did seem to become more bearable. She survived and many others did not.

Dimitri, whose love for Marina never fades, finds that "she is leaving him, not all at once, which would be painful enough, but in a wrenching succession of separations. One moment she is here, and then she is gone again, and each journey takes her a little farther from his reach. He cannot follow her, and he wonders where she goes when she leaves." Perhaps she returns to the Hermitage and the multitudes of Madonnas offering comfort and compassion.

Reviewed by Judith Helburn
For Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviews.org
reviewing books by, for, and about women

The grand, gilded frames hang empty on the walls of the Hermitage, a witness of hope for restoration of the paintings packed away for protection during the siege of Leningrad. Perhaps they are also a metaphor for the Marina's life - once filled with beauty and meaning, now under siege by a relentless enemy, Alzheimer's.

The Madonnas of Leningrad shines like a jewel from its many facets - art history and appreciation, human drama and war, the mystery of the inner person and the heartbreak of Alzheimer's. I was captivated from the first page to the last sentence of this book about beauty, this beautiful book.

Now I want to visit St Petersburg, especially the Hermitage Museum. I visited the Hermitage website during the read and found Marina's descriptions very accurate. The seige was described with compelling authenticity especially for and author who didn't visit the Hermitage until after she had finished writing the book. A very good historical novel.

This book was recommended to me by a friend and after reading it I have recommended it to all of my friends and also gave my copy to my daughter.

This book spoke to me on many levels. My dad had Alzheimers. I visited Russia in the summer of 2006, toured the Hermitage, and like the author, had some emotional "breakdowns" upon learning the tragic details of the siege of Leningrad. The descriptions of the paintings transported me back to the beautifully restored rooms of the Hermitage, where babushki still sit, keeping an eye on the visitors. I will never forget the surprised, yet appreciative looks on their faces when I thanked each of them in Russian for the privilege of viewing "their" treasures.

The history in the book was interested; however, the story was very slow. If you have someone in your family with Alzheimer's, you really do not want to read this book.

I work as a docent at two museums, so this book had a particularly strong impact on me. As a devoted lover of fine art and literature, and never having realized my lifelong dream of visiting the Hermitage, I found this book satisfying and moving on so many levels. A beautifully written tale of human courage and sacrifice, of beauty and horror intertwined, The Madonnas of Leningrad is a touching, aching testament to the human spirit. I'm now looking forward even more eagerly to my own next opportunities to bring the beauty of art and the human drama it represents to the visitors on my own tours!

I totally agree with Electra Wilson's review. The book was definitely not what I had expected. I know St. Petersburg quite well and bought the book because I was intrigued by its title. What I had hoped for was a typically Russian story but unfortunately I could not find the Russian soul in it anywhere. It should have been entitled "the war-time experience of an Alzheimer's patient." War is horrific in any setting, and Debra Dean made it Leningrad by mentioning a few monuments and streets and by choosing Russian names for her characters. But which authentically Russian "babushka" would worship a foreign painting, even in times of extreme hardship? She would perhaps have a time-worn picture of an ikon folded up in her pocket that she would take out and look at once in a while when times got hard. Marina's reunion with Dmitri after the war is also extremely far-fetched. What are the odds she would accidentally run into him on the street in another country? And what ultimately happened to the children Mikhail and Tatiana? There is no tying up loose ends and the story becomes totally unsatisfactory. If you love Russia, and especially St. Petersburg, like I do, skip the book.

Someone may already have pointed this out, but isn't part of the point of the shifting timescape the fact that this is what happens in Alzheimer's? One minute you're there, and the next, you're not? Or you're somewhere else? I found the author's use of time-shifting extremely effective. In addition, I thought her blending of Marina's lives (for lack of a better word) was handled with delicacy and skill. The way she came back, at the end, to Marina's sweet attempt to "show her rescuer the world" was, in my mind, exquisitely done and very poignant. Marina had several worlds--some real, some imagined--all along. I am fortunate to have some knowledge of Russian history and the siege of Leningrad, but that certainly is not a requirement for enjoying the narrative. I thought this book was terrific--my favorite summer read. Highly recommended.

It is rare to find a book so carefully crafted and so hauntingly beautiful.

If you're looking for a book that you will think about as you go about your daily life, this is it. [And I must confess that I spent my share of time googling the paintings Marina describes.]

_The Madonnas of Leningrad_ shows us the world through the eyes of a survivor of the seige of Leningrad, both as it was happening to Marina in 1941, and as it was remembered by an 82 year-old Marina suffering from Alzheimer's. It is a heart-breakingly beautiful story, as Dean vividly describes not only the magnificence of the Hermitage (and its artwork), but also the struggles Marina faces as both a young woman and a crone.

I was particularly struck by the way Dean allowed me to see through the eyes of a woman with Alzheimer's - what Marina's husband, daughter, or construction workers saw as nonsensical, was, in fact, logical to what was going on in Marina's mind. The ebb and flow between time and place, the gradual loss of ones self, and the child-like wonder of someone suffering from dementia were humanely portrayed. Recommended.

There are some pretty turns of phrases, but this book cannot decide what it is.
Is it about Alzheimer's disease? Well, possibly. Is it about surviving the siege? Possibly.
But I bought this believing that I'd have a unique approach to a woman's struggle during the long, devastating siege of Leningrad by the Germans. It does in that it touches on people starving, people dying, but the general focus is on her tenure as a guide (and packer) at the Hermitage and what her speeches were to this and that group. It attempts to be mystical and misses the mark. This book didn't hold together well for me.

Chapters shifted back and forth between Marina's Russian life and her old age as her memory is receding...and the problems her husband has with her...and her daughter's lonely and complicated life...and you probably get the idea.
The madonnas of the story are paintings.

This book was beautifully written. It was touching and achingly satisfying. Many novels are now so plot driven they lack the characterization that made this story so vivid. What a gem. Best book I've read in ages, and I read alot.

I have to agree with "Busy Mom's" review. Vertually everything she expressed I experienced while reading the book. I am also left with the desire to research the Madonnas so beautifully described. Debra Dean has written a most compelling book. Although one isn't introduced to the characters in depth there is certainly a strong sense of 'knowing' them and caring for them. I would have liked the book to continue for another chapter or two just to "clean" up a few issues for me. But, having said that, the book is a slice of life as it is and life is never-ending. Please read this book you wont be sorry.

Congratulations to Debra Dean for a job done spectacularly well. I would love to explain the many ways this book touched my own life, but instead I will simply say that there have been few novels in my (lengthy) lifetime that have impressed me so much. So well researched, so artfully written. Thanks for a wonderful read! Can't wait to read your next book.

I love this book and highly recommend it to people who want to try somehting different. The story is heart breaking and makes us look a different part of WWII other than D-Day or Pearl Harbor.

I actually liked this book enough to write a review for it - and that's saying something for me. I thought the book focused more on young Marina (vs her 82-year-old self), the seige, the Hermitage and what it was like surviving at that time. That's what interested me the most. The parts about the "present" Marina were heartbreaking, watching a woman slowly succumb to Alzheimers. I imagine that your reading experience is enhanced if you have actually been to St Petersburg and to the Hermitage. It certainly compelled me to re-examine my scrapbooks. My only complaint is that it seems like the story just stopped. I would have liked it if it had been about 1/4 of a book longer, delving more into the young Marina and her experiences during and immediately after the seige. Otherwise, it's a quick, riveting read.

This was an interesting and enjoyable read.....The telling of the unbelievable living conditions during the blockade of Leningrad and how some people survived in the basement of the Hermitage....all remembered by an older women now suffering from Alzheimer's. It provides insight into the mind of someone suffering from Alzheimer's as well as the extraordinary experience she endured as a young women in Leningrad.

As an art museum professional, a lover of history, and a fan of stories about family, I found this novel very compelling and wonderfully told. Although I can see one reviewer's point about feeling that the present-day portions were unnecessary, I found them to be very moving and poignant. Not only was it an interesting view into the effects of Alzhiemer's and memory loss on both the individual and the family, but it also brought to light questions about identities within the family and how the past is sometimes obscured from children, for better or for worse. I also really enjoyed how the stories were intertwined and how Marina increasingly got lost in her memories of the war because of her inability to connect with the people and events around her.

I particularly enjoyed the way that the works of art became a focal point of Marina's experience - despite they're having been removed from the museum - and the way that they became one of the things through which she was able to survive and persevere during this terrible period. The descriptions of the works was wonderful and the idea of the memory palace was fascinating.

This is one of the few novels where I felt that it could have been longer. Too often, authors get carried away and drag the story out too far. With the end of this one, I felt like both of the stories had not been played out or developed quite as fully as I would have liked. Despite wishing for more, I really enjoyed the novel and look forward to future novels by Ms. Dean.

I have wanted to read this book for a long time and it is worth the wait to get my hands on it! It is beautifully written as it criss-crossed across the years of the past into the present. It presented a confused woman's state very well (and very scarily!) as she remembered the war as she hunkered down in Leningrad, and the old lady she has become.

This book is about Marina. She is elderly and confused. She retreats into her memory of what it was like to be in besieged Leningrad during World War Two. She remembers the paintings that adorned the great art musuem and the history while starving. It seems as if the paintings that were no longer there (they had been bundled up to be taken someplace safe) were her lifeline, her reason to remain alive while waiting to hear back from Dmitri, her fiance who had been drafted to fight at the front, and waiting for the endless relentless grip of the bitter winter to be over. Over and over she remembered the living Madonnas that engraced the musuem walls at one time ~~ even long after the war is over.

It is very beautifully written and very haunting. It will haunt you as you read of a woman's mind as she struggles to survive a brutal war as well as the ravages of a disease eating away at her mind. It is compelling and spell-binding. Once you pick this book up, you will not be able to stop until the last page has been turned. Then you'll want to research all the paintings that has been lovely described in this novel ... it will haunt you for days afterwards ~~ as a reminder that life is fragile and art will transcend time and be timeless. This book is a little gem to be shared over and over with your friends and other book lovers.

Don't hesitate to pick this one up. You won't regret it!

4-28-07

As one can read from the summaries, this book is about a young woman's experiences during the Siege of Leningrad during WWII and her later descent into Alzheimer's. I found both stories to be compelling, but especially think the author did a good job of portraying Marina's confusion due to Alzheimers and the reaction of those around her at her granddaughter's wedding. It provided a great insight into the fact that we can never understand the past experiences of others especially our parents.

I do believe this is a very well written novel; however, at times, I must admit that it didn't grip me as it should. I don't have a strong art background and quite frankly found some of the descriptions of the paintings tedious (I know those of you who are art lovers are going to disagree with that statement). This is a great novel for the lovers of historical fiction AND art.

I would highly recommend The Siege: A Novel by Helen Dunmore which is also about the Siege of Leningrad.

I flew through this book and was richly rewarded. I came very close to tears while reading this book. Extremely moving.

This is a book I looked forward to returning to at the end of the day. Precise historical portraiture; beautiful descriptions; a heroine who's soft and strong at the same time--THE MADONNAS OF LENINGRAD is ultimately a tender and touching novel.

Debra Dean does an amazing job of getting under the skin of the Siege of Leningrad, 1941. The conditions for life were utterly intolerable yet the heroine survived by using her mental capacities, remembering every item of the Hermitage Collection using her memory. Ms. Dean had never been to Russia (then, the Soviet Union) yet she recreates the horrors of the siege with clarity and candor. It is a remarkable tour de force. For anyone who has survived wartime bombing, Madonnas is "too close to home."

Debra Dean does an amazing job of getting under the skin of the Siege of Leningrad, 1941. The conditions for life were utterly intolerable yet the heroine survived by using her mental capacities, remembering every item of the Hermitage Collection using her memory. Ms. Dean had never been to Russia (then, the Soviet Union) yet she recreates the horrors of the siege with clarity and candor. It is a remarkable tour de force. For anyone who has survived wartime bombing, Madonnas is "too close to home."

I recently performed a reading and concert for the Kings English Bookstore in Salt Lake City. Before leaving the store, owner Betsy Burton asked me to select any book I'd like from their amazing inventory. Overwhelmed and pressed for time, I asked her to select one for me. Betsy chose Debra Dean's book as one of her picks of the year, and with good reason. With simple elegance and some of the most gorgeous descriptions of art (many of the scenes take place in The Hermitage Museum during the siege of Leningrad) The Madonnas of Leningrad explores the beautiful strength and terrifying fragility of one woman's mind as she falls victim to Alzheimers disease.

This first time novel was a reward to read not only for the history and the love story but also for the story between aging parents and children. While some readers did not appreciate the time shifts from the present to WWII and back, I found that it was a necessary and important device to help the reader understand Marina's dementia. The descriptions of the Hermitage and the Winter Palace transport the reader straight to wartorn Leningrad. It was a joy to read and I look forward to the author's next work.

The novel, Madonnas of Leningrad, is a wonderful tribute to the human spirit when it is put to the ulimate test. Out of the frozen, bleak darkness of Leningrad under siege there emerges the most wondrous images of golden framed Madonnas in tranquil, glorious colors. The pictures of each Madonna,.......... full of beauty, holding the promise of new life within them is a wonderful imagery for the essence of the story itself. In the darkness of the womb , with the pain of the delivery comes the beautiful fruit , the seed of hope, the future. On another level of symbolism, the Madonnas are mothers who suffered great loss for the price of redemption ...like Mother Russia who suffered through the siege but was eventually redeemed. The story is lovingly told and beautifully researched. The power of memory to take us to places of survival should give some hope to anyone dealing with the ravages of Alzheimers disease in their own families. Marina survived the desperate time in Leningrad through the power of the Memory palace ........where she could retreat at any given moment. It is to this Memory Palace that she will travel again at the end of her battle with Alzheimers. In this place beauty is ever present.........and the world is a lusterous canvas framed with solace, beauty and redemption. This book is a wonderful debut effort by an inspired author.

The novel, Madonnas of Leningrad, is a wonderful tribute to the human spirit when it is put to the ulimate test. Out of the frozen, bleak darkness of Leningrad under siege there emerges the most wondrous images of golden framed Madonnas in tranquil, glorious colors. The pictures of each Madonna,.......... full of beauty, holding the promise of new life within them is a wonderful imagery for the essence of the story itself. In the darkness of the womb , with the pain of the delivery comes the beautiful fruit , the seed of hope, the future. The story is lovingly told and beautifully researched. The power of memory to take us to places of survival should give some hope to anyone dealing with the ravages of Alzheimers disease in their own families. Marina survived the desparate time in Leningrad through the power of the Memory place ........where she could retreat at any given moment. It is to this Memory Place that she will travel again at the end of her battle with Alzheimers. In this place beauty is ever present.........and the world is a lusterous canvas framed with solace and redemption. This book is a wonderful debut effort by an inspired author.