War and Peace, or Peace and War?

May & Natasha is a Cold War Saga that opens in the Soviet Union of 1941. The book begins with the Siege of Leningrad and the death of a young, promising ballerina in the Kirov Ballet, Elizaveta (Americans may be more familiar with the Bolshoi Ballet). Found dead with twin girls on her chest, Elizaveta’s best friend, Katusha, rescues the babies before escaping to a nearby city. To honor her friend, Katusha enrolls Maya and Natasha in ballet lessons with the Vaganova Ballet Academy and the girls display a natural gift. As they grow and develop,  Natasha shines as a bold, leading-lady type of dancer; Maya is steady, capable, and comfortable being a member of the company. In their late teens, the girls are on track to join the elite Kirov Ballet and excited by the opportunity to work as dancers and tour the world together. 

But the Communist USSR is not a good place to be, and the Kremlin knows that Soviet citizens are flight-risks for defecting when given the opportunity. So, the Kremlin enacts a law that family members may no longer travel abroad together. In other words, it doesn’t matter if both girls qualify for the Kirov; only one will be allowed to go. Enter the perfect setup for a major betrayal and estrangement that will affect the sisters as they navigate living lives neither of them expected. 

Lara: I’m always up for stories of family drama and this one really delivered. The backdrop of Cold War Russia, the directives on what constitutes Art (and that it must meet a level of respectability), the big personalities in the Soviet Ballet world and American Film all added to my interest and the good tension I felt while reading it. And a lot of the people and places were real which added to the story’s authenticity. 

I also liked that author Durham didn’t move events in what I thought could be obvious directions. She kept me guessing and kept me turning pages. I even shed some tears when everything was finally revealed. 

I want to highlight Durham’s writing. It’s solid and engaging.

“Days that turn out to be earth-shattering rarely announce themselves as such in the morning.”

and

“At 20, Natasha was the precise age to appeal to most men in all stages of life: very young men, who saw her as a peer; older men, who saw her as a little sparrow to take under their wings; and middle-aged men who saw her as a worthy conquest to show up their eroding confidence… But with all of this attention, Natasha had never felt seen. She knew she was not a person in their eyes. She was a reflection, a symbol of whatever it was that they loved or hated most in themselves.”

and

“Natasha wondered how it would feel to step out of your life. Would you feel crushable and small, like a snail without a shell, or someone who exited a chrysalis and sprouted wings?”

What did you think?

Jennifer:  I really liked it. I think I’ll just give y’all the skinny: it’s a well-written, smart, intriguing, and a mild-mannered page-turner that’s a cut above the rest. I’ll likely think of it as a strong 2025 novel, though I might love others more. Still, there were things I thought were excellent. The historical detail was fabulous. 

I’ll be frank and sound pretentious, but please know that I’m just a writer girl. Prior to my life as an English prof, I studied and worked (barely!) in International Relations. The Cold War was on the cusp of ending, and I did have the opportunity to visit the Soviet Union–both Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and Moscow–when Gorbachev was in power. Because of that, I was really into the details of Soviet life. 

So much of the setting and the mood and the times slip smartly into the story. As the girls are preparing for their audition with the Kirov, one of them gets wrapped up with the Stilyagi, a real-life fascinating counter-cultural youth movement! I was interested! And the hardcore Soviet life rings true: a life of drudgery, a kind of colorless poverty. I kept remembering how, once upon a time, we Americans were all so fascinated by Mikhail Baryshnikov’s dancing career–this sexy Soviet guy–and his defection to the West. 

So, let’s name-drop a little: What made us read this, Lara?

Lara: Well, I first heard about this book when I appeared on the “What Should I Read Next?” Podcast with Anne Bogel. She wanted to recommend a book that had a tie to my name’s Russian roots. And, I have to say, I would rather read Maya & Natasha than Dr. Zhivago (sorry Mom, Dad, and Boris Pasternak). 

Jennifer: We should read Zhivago. I should read Zhivago.

I also really loved so much of the writing.

“Don’t let anger make you a thug,” Lev said. “If you must retaliate, do it elegantly.”

and

“Only three things can be depended on in this world: that hemlines will rise and fall, that regimes will come and go, and that people will never change. This is why the Russians went on doing the same things under Brezhnev that they did under Khrushchev, which they’d also done under Stalin, which were the same things people everywhere have always done . . .”

and

“Once, she’d thought that being bound to others was a kind of slavery. But a life lived in the sole pursuit of your own happiness was a life without love, and being free from love wasn’t freedom at all–it was slavery to yourself.”

and

“It was wonderful, and it did not matter who had made it–or perhaps it did, perhaps bringing some sort of lasting beauty into the world could be a kind of repentance. Perhaps it could save you.”

I agree with you that we’re kept guessing. There were multiple twists-and-turns, and there are real historic figures in this novel, including George Balanchine, Sergei Bondarchuk, and Yekaterina Furtseva–all worth looking up!

Here’s one funny thing I didn’t like. I’m reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace over the course of the whole year. I can’t say I’m loving it, but I’m doing it. It just so happens that a major plot-point in this book is the making of the Soviet film version of War and Peace (1966-67 by Bondarchuk). In my reading, I’m vested in ONE storyline–I kid you not, Durham wrote a spoiler of that ONE storyline. So now I know what happens to my ONE favorite character. 

Okay, anything you didn’t like?

Lara: I think the statute of limitations on spoilers of books written in the 1800s has expired. The only thing I didn’t love was I felt one of the characters, Ykaterina Fursteva, the Minister of Culture under Nikita Khrushchev, seemed like a caricature and not a fully fleshed-out person, but it turns out that she was in fact a real person in the Soviet government. So, what do I know?

Jennifer: And this begs a whole other discussion on Art in the Soviet Union. Pretty artless. The nature of the Arts was very much dictated, becoming propaganda–and I think the Arts are still recovering. There are a lot of hot-topics here, like Soviet Realism, the school of thought. This is a book about real dancers who want to dance–no matter what.

Did you find these characters likeable? How important is that? 

Lara: You know, I don’t have to like characters to enjoy a book. I do have to understand how they could come to make their decisions; their actions have to seem like they are plausible even if they are reprehensible. That said, the sisters make some choices that have life-altering consequences, but that made for a really compelling story, so I rolled with it. I did love Olaf, Maya’s dance partner who ends up figuring prominently in the story. 

What about you?

Jennifer:  I liked Olaf the best too! I agree with you, though. I may not have loved them, but I felt for them both. 

What else have you been reading?

Lara: I feel like I am always reading, but it turns out that I have only completed two books since we last met: A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci, which my son recommended to me. He’s twenty-one, and I think this is the first book he’s ever recommended to me–so, of course, I read it. It was great. I also read Anna O by Matthew Blake for one of my book clubs. 

Jennifer: I know it seems like I’m reading a ton too, but I’m really not. A lot of my reading lately is going slowly over time. In preparation for our next column, I’m reading both Hum by Helen Phillips and The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami. Good old War and Peace is still on my table. 

Up Next ! 

We are diving into the dystopia with a double-header: Hum by Helen Phillips and The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami.