The Girl from the Hermitage
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Eye Books
Published:1st Sep '20
Should be back in stock very soon
'A beautifully written book that takes you right into the characters' world. Highly recommended' - Lucinda Hawksley, 'The best historical fiction helps us walk through history alongside ordinary people and that's what The Girl from the Hermitage achieves with deceptive ease. Molly Garland's evocation of Russian life in all its contrasting stages is always utterly convincing and frequently affecting. It's a terrific debut' - Liz Trenow, 'A captivating and richly imagined portrait of love, life and survival' - Caroline Ambrose, founder, Bath Novel Award
A meditaion on ageing and nostalgia as well as a page-tuner. Listed for four prizes
Galina was born into a world of horrors. So why does she mourn its passing?
SHORTLISTED: Impress Prize
LONGLISTED: Bath Novel Award
LONGLISTED: Blogger’s Book Prize
LONGLISTED: Grindstone Novel Award
It is December 1941, and eight-year-old Galina and her friend Vera are caught in the siege of Leningrad, eating wallpaper soup and dead rats. Galina’s artist father Mikhail has been kept away from the front to help save the treasures of the Hermitage. Its cellars could provide a safe haven, as long as Mikhail can survive the perils of a commission from one of Stalin’s colonels.
Three decades on, Galina is a teacher at the Leningrad Art Institute. What ought to be a celebratory weekend at her forest dacha turns sour when she makes an unwelcome discovery. The painting she starts that day will hold a grim significance for the rest of her life, as the old Soviet Union makes way for the new Russia and her world changes out of all recognition.
Warm, wise and utterly enthralling, Molly Gartland’s debut novel guides us from the old communist era, with its obvious terrors and its more surprising comforts, into the bling of 21st-century St Petersburg. Galina’s story is an insightful meditation on ageing and nostalgia as well as a compelling page-turner.
‘A beautifully written book that takes you right into the characters’ world. Highly recommended’
‘Compelling and enthralling...a convincingly authentic story, as well as a moving and thought-provoking one’ -- NB Magazine *****
‘Gartland has marshalled details of [wartime] life into vibrant and moving scenes. She is as comfortable with her post-war social history as she is with the siege. An author who has a clear talent for parlaying careful research into a credible sense of time and place, she has provided a fine addition to the rich genre of historical fiction set in St Petersburg’ -- Moscow Times
‘Sweeps its heroine from surviving on soup made from wallpaper in 40s Leningrad to the bling of 21st-century St Peterburg. Recommended’ -- Waitrose Weekend
‘A beautifully written book that takes you right into the characters’ world. Highly recommended’ || ‘Compelling and enthralling...a convincingly authentic story, as well as a moving and thought-provoking one’ - NB Magazine ***** || ‘Gartland has marshalled details of [wartime] life into vibrant and moving scenes. She is as comfortable with her post-war social history as she is with the siege. An author who has a clear talent for parlaying careful research into a credible sense of time and place, she has provided a fine addition to the rich genre of historical fiction set in St Petersburg’ - Moscow Times || ‘Sweeps its heroine from surviving on soup made from wallpaper in 40s Leningrad to the bling of 21st-century St Peterburg. Recommended’ - Waitrose Weekend
‘A beautifully written book that takes you right into the characters’ world. Highly recommended’ || ‘Compelling and enthralling...a convincingly authentic story, as well as a moving and thought-provoking one’ - NB Magazine ***** || ‘Gartland has marshalled details of [wartime] life into vibrant and moving scenes. She is as comfortable with her post-war social history as she is with the siege. An author who has a clear talent for parlaying careful research into a credible sense of time and place, she has provided a fine addition to the rich genre of historical fiction set in St Petersburg’ - Moscow Times || ‘Sweeps its heroine from surviving on soup made from wallpaper in 40s Leningrad to the bling of 21st-century St Peterburg. Recommended’ - Waitrose Weekend
- Commended for Mslexia Novel Competition 2017
- Commended for Bath Novel Award 2018
- Commended for Grindstone Novel Award 2018
- Short-listed for Impress [Prize 2017
ISBN: 9781785631887
Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 18mm
Weight: 311g
288 pages