John Burnham Schwartz

I've read Schwartz's earlier historical novel The Commoner and was eager to see what he would do with this one, based on the life of Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva, who defected to the US in 1967. He gives us two narrators, Svetlana herself and Peter Horvath, a young lawyer sent by the CIA to escort her to freedom. Interestingly, Schwartz's own father was the real-life lawyer on whom the character is based, and he had access to letters and documents that help to flesh out the story. His father (and his character) maintained a lifelong relationship with Svetlana, despite her demanding and sometimes irrational behavior. In the novel, she reminisces about her father, whose behavior towards his children was domineering and cruel, and about the son and daughter she left behind in the USSR. She struggles through a series of relationships and marriages, including one to Frank Lloyd Wright's former son-in-law, a marriage that resulted in a lengthy tenancy at Taliesin West and her only American-born child. Svetlana comes across as both a lonely woman looking for a place to belong in her new country and a selfish, headstrong, domineering woman who can't seem to break from her privileged yet tyrannical past. In any case, hers is a sad but fascinating story. Peter Horvath is the perfect foil: patient, reasonable, yet not afraid to speak his mind.

The Red Daughter is well written and well researched, and it has made me want to learn more about Svetlana and the struggles she faced as the daughter of one of history's most brutal dictators.… (altro)