The Nesting Dolls by Alina Adams

 “Family saga centering on three generations of women in one Russian Jewish family” – each striving to be free from oppression and yearning for personal fulfillment.

Odessa, USSR, 1931-1941. Daria, at seventeen years old, marries an accomplished pianist. Her mother is very proud of marring Daria to the right man. Under the Soviet control, where everyone is equal, you have to weigh your words very carefully or someone may show up at your doorstep to collect you. Daria and her family are arrested and forced into a labor camp in Siberia. At the labor camp, they are told that they’re not prisoners, but pioneers who will prove their worth through honest work by building homes and schools, raising children and educating them.

Not prisoners, but pioneers, and yet people feel terrorized. Well-depicted terror inflicted by despotic rule, along with beautifully crafted story of a woman who is willing to take any measure to protect her family. She is a strong, passionate woman. But others’ passions turn into passive and compliant characters. When the government takes from you and distributes among all. When you have no say how you want to live your life. It’s all decided for you. You just need to agree and comply with what is being said and done.

Odessa, 1970-1991. Natasha doesn’t get into university, because like other Jews they were given unsolvable equations in math. And that was “to keep Jews out of universities.” With her parent’s bribe, she gets into teacher’s college. Once a teacher, students’ passing is her responsibility. USSR is eager to educate everyone, even peasants. The communal learning process is praised as uniquely Soviet, graduating five times the number of engineers, doctors, and academics in this manner.

Told to follow the rules, be good, and a reward would come. But it never does. Thus, some go into submission and some rebel.

Brighton Beach aka “Little Odessa,” NY. 2019. Zoe has “important career in researching businesses.” In order to get where she wanted to be she had to take loans to be able to study at NYU. It’s an American way of life. She “is doing everything she can to distance herself from the Little Odessa ghetto” in oceanside Brooklyn. “How odd it was to be American, feel American, look American on the outside – and yet somehow still be so foreign on the inside.”

She didn’t experience difficulties living under an oppressed rule. As a first generation American, she tries to distance herself from the ghetto (emigrant) area and fit with other Americans. But what is a ghetto for her was a safe haven for her mother and grandmother. Nevertheless, she is respectful of her family and tries to make them happy, but at the same time she wants to make her own choices. And what grandma hopes for Zoe is to be able “to tell difference between the wanting and the needing.” The subject that was explored through previous stories.

The story has a good pace and is interestingly presented through all generations. It well depicts women “striving to break free of fate and history, each yearning for love and personal fulfillment.”

Nevertheless, the first story of Daria is the strongest and most engrossing story. As mentioned before, I still found the following two stories interesting, bringing something new to the story in terms of historical background and a different perspective on life and longings. Bringing also cultural aspect, which is always interesting and a feedback how one culture views another.

Release date: 14 July 2020

Publisher: Harper