~ Sue’s Bookshelf ~

Charlotte Jewish News June 2021

Sue Littauer

According to Jillian Cantor, USA Today bestselling author of “The Lost Letter and In Another Time,” “‘The Nesting Dolls’ is a vividly rendered, sweeping historical novel. Alina Adams deftly portrays three generations of women, beautifully weaving their coming of age stories about love, sacrifice, family, and ultimately survival. I absolutely devoured this compulsively readable gem of a novel.”

When I came upon the cover of the book “The Nesting Dolls” by Alina Adams, I was intrigued, and as I became immersed in the novel, there were a few times when the book brought to mind personal recollections for me.

First, the matryoshka doll on the book’s cover looks exactly like the one positioned prominently on a shelf in my home. My matryoshka doll was given to me on the first of my three trips to the Ukraine, as a participant on the Jewish Federation of North America’s (JFNA) Campaign Chair and Directors Missions. On that first incredible trip, we gathered with townspeople to mark the 100th year since the Kishinev pogrom in 1903.

Also, much of “The Nesting Dolls” takes place in Odessa, where I visited on my third JFNA Mission in 2006. That trip highlighted for us the resurgence and rebuilding of Jewish communal life following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Federation lay and professional leaders were joined by Hillel students, Jewish communal professionals, and community leaders during that visit.

The third memory took me back to the 1980s when I attended a B’nai B’rith Women’s Conference in Washington, D.C. during the height of the resettlement of Soviet Jews in the United States. One of the speakers was Ina Nudel, the former refusenik and Israeli activist who was known as the “Guardian Angel” for her efforts to help the “Prisoners of Zion” in the Soviet Union. During her speech, Ms. Nudel asked how many in the room had grandparents from Russia. Ninety percent of the hands went up, at which time she said, “There but for the grace of God go I.” This made a huge impression on me and I will never forget the pall that came over the room — many of us realizing how different our lives would have been had our grandparents not left Russia.

These memories served to pique my interest in “The Nesting Dolls,” which masterfully unravels the story of five generations of Russian Jewish women. It specifically follows three of these women from Odessa to Siberia to the United States. Daria, the matriarch of the family, faces impossible choices when her pianist husband and the rest of their small family are marched off to Siberian labor camps, having been accused of speaking, thereby being, German. Then, in the 1970s, Daria’s granddaughter Natasha, clearly the victim of Soviet Union antisemitism, is able to resettle from Odessa to the United States. Finally, Zoe, Daria’s great, great-granddaughter, who lives in Brighton Beach, struggles to bridge the gap in her identity, which is split between Russian/Ukrainian Jew and American.

I know you will be as swept away by this mesmerizing novel as I was, and the stories of Daria, Natasha, and Zoe will stay with you for many years to come.