Nationally acclaimed author visits the island…

Griffin Bay Books is proud to host a special event for Seattle native author Debra Dean. She’s well known to the world, with her debut novel published in 20 languages and picked as the Editor’s Choice by the New York Times. Here’s a bit about her book, “Madonnas of Leningrad,” from Nancy Larsen:

The Madonnas of Leningrad, Debra Dean’s debut novel, was hailed as a powerful and sensitive look at Alzheimer’s, the consolations of art, and the consolations and degradations of memory. Marina is a Russian emigrant living in the Pacific Northwest whose mind is being steadily corroded by Alzheimer’s disease. She cannot hold onto fresh memories, yet her distant past is miraculously preserved in her mind’s eye.

Author and novel…

As a young woman during World War II, Marina survived the Nazi siege of Leningrad in the basement of the Hermitage, where she’d been a docent; she kept her sanity by building a “memory palace” to recall the paintings long since packed up for safekeeping. The novel switches deftly between the siege and the present, when Marina and her husband are traveling to their granddaughter’s wedding, and in doing so it keeps circling the idea that memory can be both ally and enemy.

Vivid images of her youth in war-torn Leningrad arise unbidden, carrying her back to the terrible fall of 1941, when she was a tour guide at the Hermitage Museum and the German army’s approach signaled the beginning of what would be a long, torturous siege on the city. As the people braved starvation, bitter cold, and a relentless German onslaught, Marina joined other staff members in removing the museum’s priceless masterpieces for safekeeping, leaving the frames hanging empty on the walls to symbolize the artworks’ eventual return. As the Luftwaffe’s bombs pounded the proud, stricken city, Marina built a personal Hermitage in her mind—a refuge that would stay buried deep within her, until she needed it once more.

Be sure to come to the event hosted by Griffin Bay and the San Juan Library on Thursday, July 26th at 7pm.

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