The Secrets We Kept

Pasternak. Take the vodka bottle out of the freezer, and pour yourself a healthy drink as you settle down to read Lara Prescott’s debut novel titled, The Secrets We Kept. She gives us Boris Pasternak living under Soviet oppression, and unsure that he will ever see the publication of Dr. Zhivago. We see his complicated life with both wife and mistress. Prescott also describes the situation of women in the CIA during the cold war, when their roles as secretaries exposed them to secrets of all sorts, and some of them were able to pursue spy craft. We see the effort to use Dr. Zhivago as a way to turn Soviet citizens against communism. Thanks to Prescott’s fine prose and effective character development, we are pulled into places and times that merge the historical and fictional with skill. As I raised my glass of vodka upon finishing the novel, I toasted Pasternak: “Vechnaya pamyat” (let him be remembered forever). Na zdorovye. Rating: Four-star (I like it) Click here to purchase The Secrets We Kept from amazon.com.