"When the Great Depression hits, Florence Fein leaves Brooklyn College for what appears to be a plum job in Moscow-and the promise of love and independence. But once in Russia, she quickly becomes entangled in a country she can't escape. Many years later, Florence's son, Julian, will make the opposite journey, immigrating back to the United States. His work in the oil industry takes him on frequent visits to Moscow, and when he learns that Florence's...

In 1945 Russia, those who own German shepherds are considered traitors, but thirteen-year-old Mikhail and his family are determined to keep the dog a dying man brought them, while his classmate Katia strives to learn his secret.

Illustrations and text follow the story of a six-room Moscow apartment throughout the twentieth century and the family living there, as their personal upheavals and accomplishments reflect events in Russia and the wider world.

March 1913. Moscow is stirring herself to meet the beginning of spring. English painter Frank Reid returns from work one night to find that his wife has gone away; no one knows where or why, or whether she'll ever come back. All Frank knows for sure is that he is now alone and must find someone to care for his three young children. Into Frank's life comes Lisa Ivanovna, a quiet, calming beauty from the country, untroubled to the point of seeming simple....

"When Mitya was two years old, he swallowed his grandmother's sewing needle. For his family, it marks the beginning of the end. As he grows, his life mirrors the uncertain future of his country, which is attempting to rebuild itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union, torn between its past and the promise of modern freedom. Mitya finds himself facing a different sort of ambiguity: is he a boy, as everyone keeps telling him, or is he not quite...

"A novel about the lives of several families living in the famous Tolstoy apartment building in St. Petersburg. This book is about their lives, full of disappointments and success, the last few decades, and so on."--

"A sweeping multigenerational debut novel about idealism, betrayal, and family secrets that takes us from Brooklyn in the 1930s to Soviet Russia to post-Cold War America. When the Great Depression hits, Florence Fein leaves Brooklyn College for what appears to be a plum job in Moscow--and the promise of love and independence. But once in Russia, she quickly becomes entangled in a country she can't escape. Many years later, Florence's son, Julian,...

Nineteen eighty-four: Winston Smith endures a squalid existence in totalitarian Oceania under the constant surveillance of Big Brother. When he starts an illegal love affair, he becomes the target of a brain-washing campaign to force him to conform. Crime and punishment: A modern version of Dostoyevsky's classic of one man's search for the true meaning of his existence.