Enchantments

Description

From one of the most admired literary voices of our time, a magical, riveting story of doomed love, set at the fall of Russia's last Tsar. New Year's Day, St. Petersburg, 1917. Divers pull the body of Rasputin, the Mad Monk, from the icy waters of the Neva River. Within hours, his daughters are taken to the Royal Palace, where the Tsarina makes a shocking request: would Masha, 18, take on her father's role as healer to the Tsarevitch Alyosha? Two months later, revolution has toppled the Tsar, and the entire family is placed under house-arrest. Trapped together in harsh conditions, Masha and Alyosha find solace in one another's company. Two teenagers, with radically different experiences of the Romanov's ill-fated reign, create a private realm of magic and love, as Masha introduces Alyosha to the wild and beautiful land he will never rule.

Kathryn Harrison is a graduate of Stanford University and of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her first novel, Thicker than Water, was a New York Times Notable Book, as was her second, Exposure. Her most recent novel is A Thousand Orange Trees. She is also the author of The Kiss which received critical acclaim. She lives in New York City with her husband, the writer Colin Harrison and their children.

'A sumptuous, atmospheric account of the last days of the Romanovs from the perspective of Rasputin's daughter, Enchantments animates a kaleidoscopic breadth of historical detail with the sensuous, transporting prose that is Kathryn Harrison's trademark.' Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit From the Goon Squad 'Ask yourself who, in all the world, would be the best novelist to imagine being Rasputin's daughter. Kathryn Harrison makes the answer obvious. Her Enchantments is a stupendous work of historical imagination.' Peter Carey 'A marvelous writer, one of the best at work today. She is unflinching, however difficult her material... Few authors of serious literary fiction are so daring' Daily Telegraph 'Kathryn Harrison has written some of the most daringly, darkly uncompromising books I've read' Julie Myerson 'Splendid and surprising ... Kathryn Harrison has given us something enduring' New York Times 'Marvellously evocative ... The stories that Masha spins out for the bed-bound tsarevich flow out effortlessly in her plain, clear voice, making many of them indeed enchanting' Guardian