Marvelous reminiscence.' -Ben Dickinson, Elle, â€œExtraordinarily rich in sensory and emotional detail. Her memoir is proof that the human spirit can triumph even in the most repressive of times.' - Edward Hower, author ofThe New Life HotelandThe Storms of May, ' A Mountain of Crumbs vividly, devastatingly conveys what it was like growing up in the shabby disillusion of the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union-and also swooningly indulges the nostalgia for place and landscape that's seemingly steeped into every Russian soul. Marvelous reminiscence.' -Ben Dickinson, Elle, 'Elena Gorokhova has written an endearing, sensitive story of her early years in the USSR.

'A Mountain of Crumbs vividly, devastatingly conveys what it was like growing up in the shabby disillusion of the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union-and also swooningly indulges the nostalgia for place and landscape that's seemingly steeped into every Russian soul. It is an elegy to the lost country of childhood, where those who leave can never return. Through Elena's captivating voice, we learn not only the stories of Russian family life in the second half of the twentieth century, but also the story of one rebellious citizen whose curiosity and determination finally transport her to a new world. In the battle between a strong-willed daughter and her authoritarian mother, the daughter, in the end, must break free and leave in order to survive. Elena is controlled by the state the same way she is controlled by her mother, a mirror image of her motherland: overbearing, protective, difficult to leave. Born with a desire to explore the world beyond her borders, Elena finds her passion in the complexity of the English language-but in the Soviet Union of the 1960s such a passion verges on the subversive. Elena's country is no longer the majestic Russia of literature or the tsars, but a nation struggling to retain its power and its pride. Urn:isbn:1439135584 Republisher_operator Scandate 20111216141437 Scanner Gorokhova's A Mountain of Crumbs is the moving story of a Soviet girl who discovers the truths adults are hiding from her and the lies her homeland lives by.

OL9661525W Page-progression lr Page_number_confidence 86.59 Pages 352 Pdf_module_version 0.0.20 Ppi 514 Related-external-id urn:isbn:1439125678 Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 20:48:29 Boxid IA142016 Boxid_2 BWB220141104 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City New York Donorįriendsofthesanfranciscopubliclibrary External-identifier

A mountain of crumbs