The Red Daughter by Jonathan Burnham Schwartz

For such a short novel, this book packed a huge punch.  Schwartz tells the story of the defection of Svetlana Alliluyeva Stalin's only daughter to the United States in the form of diary entries written by her. At 41, she abruptly defects to the United States, leaving her two oldest children in the USSR, hoping that they will be able to forge an identity separately from her and their notorious grandfather. Alliluyeva spends some time in Princeton, NJ giving lectures and writing and then moves to Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West in Arizona and has another child.  

Svetlana has written her own books: Twenty Letters to a Friend, Only One Year and another that wasn't very widely published.  Obviously, this is a fictionalized account of Svetlana's life and her experiences but I found myself drawn to her story and her experiences so much that I plan on reading Twenty Letters to a Friend. Interestingly, Schwartz had access to the file of the lawyer that went to Europe to escort Svetlana back because that lawyer was his father!  

This book was fascinating because of the themes that it explored. Svetlana never really had a life or identity of her own - either in the USSR or in the United States.  Stalin controlled her every move, including who she could marry and when and where she had to ve and then, in the United States, she had CIA minders with her all the time. Ultimately, Svetlana herself and by extension her children were used as pawns in the Cold War. Burnham does a great job in exploring this theme.  She was constantly seeking connection to people in order to fill the void that had been left within her by her leaving her two eldest children - this included imprinting on her lawyer (there was never a real romantic relationship but the possibility was definitely there) and marrying an architect at Taliesin West, in addition to having another child.  There was also significant and prolonged guilt about having to leave her two eldest children behind and her desire to have a relationship with them.

This book was impressive and a pleasure to read.