Authenticity and accuracy mark this work of historical fiction literally from chapter one. As the protagonist, Brooke Fielding, arrives at Sheremetyevo International Airport just north of Moscow, Russia in 1993, she confronts what many Jewish-Americans - and especially female Jewish-Americans - who have been through the security check recognize as "customs" lingering from the Soviet era. "Speshiy iy zhdiy." "Hurry up and wait." And while you're waiting, endure a hint of anti-Semitism, a measure of curiosity, a dash of chauvinism and a dose of intimidation. That's just the beginning of this page-turner in which Talia Carner's gutsy and proactive heroine arrives as a citizen-diplomat to teach business skills to Russian women, turns accidental sleuth, and leaves fleeing for her life. This 38 year-old, savvy New York executive lives a lifetime in a week's time as she is sucked into the maelstrom that Moscow became in October 1993 when, under Boris Yeltsin, the social order collapsed, a political revolt turned military, and economic dislocation pulverized any remaining sense of safety or security for Russian citizens. Particularly vulnerable were Russian women - Brooke's charges, two of whom she finds herself befriending and defending against the misogyny of the culture and the excesses of a city gone lawless. And in doing so, she finds herself learning what it means to be secure in one's identity while vulnerable in one's country of birth.
Brooke winds up on the receiving end of a gut-wrenching education in the realities of domestic, professional and national life for Russian women. No privacy at home. Few to no amenities like bathing, restroom and laundry facilities and even scanter kitchen appliances, foodstuffs or cookware. Antiquated sex education. Severely limited access to routine healthcare and emergency medical attention. And all these anvils on the shoulders of Russian women exacerbated by the scourge of alcoholism among Russian men that brought violence and sexual assault to women in their own homes just as the rise of mafia-like crime families brought plundering, murder and rape to their newly privatized factories and workplaces. In the transition from the Soviet period was the utter absence of anything related to sustenance that women in modern times and first world countries might build on as foundations for their stability.
If there was one sanctuary for Russian women, it was friendship, and Talia Carner's heroine embraces it. Here too, the authenticity of this novel and setting are spot-on. "Druzhba," as the Russians say, is the distinctly Russian brand of camaraderie and loyalty that binds as tight as DNA and runs deeper than compatibility or confluence of interests. It's primal. And it was as necessary as oxygen for survival in Moscow at that time. It is through Brooke's friendships that we readers get a visceral sense of the resourcefulness, resilience and capacity for growth of Russian women in circumstances and conditions most Americans in 1993 wouldn't imagine let alone experience. It is through the "druzhba" Brooke develops with two women, Svetlana and Olga, that her Jewish identity and Holocaust legacy are nuanced and ultimately defined. And while the subject matter is disturbing, Talia Carner's elegant prose ushers us gracefully and tenderly through the most intimate thoughts and spaces these women occupy. We are with this troika through their journey in and out of the euphoria that was the end of communism, the injustice of phantom anti-Semitism and the hazards of one-size-fits-all feminism.
A "hotel" is a place of temporary lodging while on an expedition and HOTEL MOSCOW is aptly entitled. For a time, Brooke Fielding and her Russian compatriots experienced the city of Moscow in which, arguably, all things magnificently and distinctly Russian are contained and most pronounced - like the set of matryoshka nesting dolls Olga presents to Brooke. "'I want you to have this, another heirloom. We are all products of our mothers, and carry their joys and sorrows inside us.'" The women depart their journey forever connected and each wiser and more worldly for one another's legacies. As Brooke says to Olga, "'I cherish that matryoshka you gave me. It reminds me of you. Strong, nurturing, traditional. Women as the keepers of old values.' With mist in her eyes, she added, 'Feminine.'"
Whatever your approach to matters of faith and feminism, pasts and futures, friendship and family, security and identity, HOTEL MOSCOW is jewel whose facets will throw light on your most personal reflections.
