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A Novel
by Elyse Durham
This stunning debut novel set in the fascinating world of Cold War Soviet ballet follows the fates of twin sisters whose bond is competitive, complicated, but never broken.
Maya and Natasha are twin sisters born in the midst of the Siege of Leningrad in 1941 and immediately abandoned by their mother, a prima ballerina at the Kirov Ballet who would rather die than not dance. Taken in by their mother's best friend at the Kirov, the girls are raised to be dancers themselves. The Vaganova Ballet Academy—and the totalitarian Soviet regime—is the only world they know.
In 1958, now seniors at the Vaganova at the height of the Cold War, all Maya and Natasha and their classmates want is to dance with the Kirov, and to join the company on its tour to America next year. But a new law from the Kremlin upends Maya and Natasha's lives: due to fears of defection, family members may no longer travel abroad together. The Kirov can only accept one of them.
Maya, long accustomed to living in her sister's shadow, accepts her bitter fate, until a new dance partner inspires her to dream bigger and practice harder. For the first time—and at the cruelest possible moment—the sisters are equally matched. And then one sister betrays the other, altering their lives forever and splitting them in two, though neither will stray far from the other's orbit.
As one of the twins pursues her ballet career and experiences a world outside Russia for the first time, the other is cast in an epic film adaptation of War and Peace, produced and financed by the Soviet State. As the Cold War heats up, Maya and Natasha must confront their loyalties: to East versus West; to the government that saved them versus their dreams of freedom; and, always, to each other.
""No one can possibly imagine what's ahead in this novel's tornado of a plot…eye-catching." —Kirkus Reviews
"The omniscient perspective creates a truly cinematic experience as it swoops among the sisters and many fictional and historical characters, including filmmaker Sergei Bondarchuk and even Khrushchev, in this riveting tale about sisterhood and the purpose of art." —Booklist
"Heartrending, elegantly told, and full of fascinating detail about the worlds of professional dance and Soviet-era daily life, Durham's debut is a stunning ballet of love, loss, and unbreakable loyalty." —Shelf Awareness
"Twin sisters born at the same time as the Soviet Union both pursue dance training at the feeder school for the great Kirov Ballet...Durham's careful writing about dualities feels like delicate choreography." —Los Angeles Times
"Bravo, bravo, and flowers to the stage for this fascinating epic story of Cold War Russian ballet dancers. Using fact and fiction, Maya & Natasha shocks and compels from its dramatic opening scene during the siege of Leningrad to the final gesture, just before the closing curtain. A novel about being the best at one's art by a writer at the best of hers." —Debra Spark, author of Discipline
"Durham soars as a storyteller in this impeccably researched novel about the complicated bond between sisters, set in the world of post-war Soviet ballet. Against a backdrop of historic events, with gothic hints of Russian folktale, the novel is both large in scope and an intimate portrayal of twin orphans coming of age and coming to terms with their own desires. Maya & Natasha is an assured and spellbinding debut." —Rae Meadows, author of Winterland
"Epic in scope, Elyse Durham's Maya & Natasha crafts a gorgeous homage to the classic Russian novel as it unravels the ambition, desperation and jealousy entwined through both sisterhood and art. Rich with atmosphere and historical detail, heartfelt and wise, this is a book to savor." —Julia Fine, author of Maddalena and the Dark
This information about Maya & Natasha was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Elyse Durham is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Her fiction has appeared or is upcoming in the Cimarron Review, Image Journal, the Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. She is an Elizabeth George grantee and has held residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, the Glen Arbor Arts Center, and The Mount, the home of Edith Wharton. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with her husband, who is a Greek Orthodox priest.
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