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It is December 1941, and eight-year-old Galina and her friend Vera are caught in the siege of Leningrad, eating soup made of wallpaper, with the occasional luxury of a dead rat. Galina’s artist father Mikhail has been kept away from the front to help save the treasures of the Hermitage. Its cellars could now provide a safe haven, provided Mikhail can navigate the perils of a portrait commission from one of Stalin’s colonels.

Nearly forty years later, Galina herself is a teacher at the Leningrad Art Academy. What ought to be a celebratory weekend at her forest dacha turns sour when she makes an unwelcome discovery. The painting she embarks upon that day will hold a grim significance for the rest of her life, as the old Soviet Union makes way for the new Russia and Galina’s familiar world changes out of all recognition.

Warm, wise and utterly enthralling, Molly Gartland’s debut novel guides us from the old communist world, with its obvious terrors and its more surprising comforts, into the glitz and bling of 21st-century St Petersburg. Galina’s story is at once a compelling page-turner and an insightful meditation on ageing and nostalgia.

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mollygartland

I have long been a fan of Alexei Navalny.  I love his wit and sharp, wonderfully Russian sense of humour. I admire his dedication and determination.  And, let’s face it, he’s easy on the eye.

                  I have followed his career from a distance, reading social media posts and watching his YouTube investigations. He is magnetic.  He draws people in and inspires them into action. And this makes him a very dangerous individual.

          I write about him in the present tense, even though he is several months dead. Having just finished reading his memoir, Patriot, he seems very much alive. At least to me.

           I remember back in 2011, when he led a march in Moscow against the corruption in elections. He was just beginning to raise his profile. I called my friend in Moscow to see what she thought about the action but she did not share my enthusiasm. As I recall she dismissed him off hand. “He’ll be a crook too. They’re all the same. Better the devil you know.” I could imagine the shrug on the other side of the line. And in time, when he was convicted for fraud and embezzlement and who knows what else, she took that as evidence of her position.

            At first, I was hesitant to read Patriot. I already knew him well – what else could this book possibly offer me? I was wrong.  Patriot is superb. It’s at time capsule that takes the reader back to his early childhood growing up in closed military towns and spending his summers on a farm with his grandmother in Zalissia, Ukraine. It follows a young man coming of age just when his country crumbles apart. I was struck by how quickly I had forgotten that his movement against corruption had significant momentum – not just in Moscow and St. Petersburg – but across Russia.  It seems an incredibly long time ago.

            He had always imagined writing a memoir in his old age, but then it became clear that he was not in a position to put things off for the future. He started writing while he was in Germany convalescing from Novichok poisoning. Much of the book is written contemporaneously. It’s harrowing stuff. And yet impossibly funny. It is all very Navalny.

 

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I participated in the March for Clean Water protest in London. Water.  What could be more basic? The legacy of Thatcher’s privatisation of the water companies has led to chronic lack of investment in our water utilities. Our Victorian infrastructure is failing.  To put it bluntly, we – and helpless wildlife – are swimming in poo.

Around the time of the march, I was midway through Patriot, so Navalny was ever-present in my thoughts. It may sound corny, but I felt he was with us as we marched along the Thames, across Westminster bridge and on to Parliament Square. Double decker sightseeing busses drove alongside, filled with tourists snapping pictures of us.

This is what democracy looks like.

I had no fear of arrest or being barred from exercising my right to protest. We would not suffer retribution next week. The tax authorities would not suddenly be interested in our affairs. How many of the tourists on those busses would say the same? How exotic was our display?

A few short days later, democracy has never seemed bleaker. The next four years make my stomach tumble with queasy dread. I vacillate between complete certainty that we are all doomed to persuading myself that it’ll be fine. I fear for the planet.

Democracy is messy.  And ugly. The temptation to cover my eyes and ears and ignore it all has never been greater. I have no idea what the future has in-store but one thing is certain – I’ll have to tap into that little bit of Navalny within.



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mollygartland


Oh dear, oh dear oh dear...  I have truly neglected my blog.  But here I am! 

 

So what HAVE I been doing all this time?  I have been toiling away at my next novel but in recent weeks I stepped away from my manuscript to enjoy a cultural bonanza of activity with my mom while she visited us here in London. We were a whirlwind of theatre, exhibitions, a couple of road trips etc. 

 

Since her departure, I have returned to working on my manuscript. And I just received the BRILLIANT news that it has been shortlisted in the Historical Novel Society First Chapters Competition.  Competitions are very important and can help writers find publishers and literary agents, so this is an accomplishment that must be properly celebrated. If there is one thing that I have learnt in this industry, it’s celebrate, celebrate and celebrate again when something good happens. (Because it might be a very long time...)

 

In celebration, I am sharing the opening chapters of my manuscript, Mrs. Jordan’s Final Act, on my website. This one is set in Georgian England with a biographical core and the action mostly takes place in my local area, my beloved Bushy Park. While visiting the National Portrait Gallery with mom, we ran into my whole cast of characters, beautifully displayed.

 

Top left: Dorothea Jordan, Queen of Comedy of the Georgian stage.

Middle: Queen Adelaide

Right: King William IV

 

I think the lower left is one of William’s brothers, not significant to our story.

 

These characters have become very near to my heart and seeing them all together in such splendour was emotional. Here's to hoping that Dorothea, Adelaide and William can find a publishing home (SOON!). Until then, you can have a sneak peek here.



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mollygartland

I have been distracted all day. I’m struggling to work on my WIP and even resorted to cleaning my bedroom and bathroom to avoid sitting down and getting words on the page. Horrific events in Ukraine have been unfolding for many days. Why am I finding it so hard to focus today?


The answer is simple. Yelena Osipova was arrested last night in Saint Petersburg. Yelena is a pensioner who bravely took to the streets with her handmade posters to express her opposition to war. Yelena is no stranger to protest. She has been making beautiful posters and protesting, often alone or in very small groups, for many years. And she is no stranger to being arrested either. You can read more about her and see her evocative work in this article in Russian Reader.


I had never heard of Yelena Osipova before yesterday. But ever since I watched the video of her being hauled off by riot police, surrounded by protesters applauding and cheering her , she has been in my thoughts. There are many parallels between Yelena and the main protagonist, Galina, in The Girl from the Hermitage. They are from the same generation and both are artists. Both are proud residents of St. Petersburg. Yelena was born in 1945, just after the siege of Leningrad. Both women grew up in the shadow of the war.


Readers often ask if there will be a sequel to The Girl from the Hermitage. This is probably due to the open ending of the book. When I was writing it, I never considered a sequel and the idea seems strange to me as I would need a long arc of 10-20 years to carry on Galina’s story. Over the past few years, the world has struggled with big, common challenges–covid and now the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Throughout the covid crisis, I have thought about Galina–even though she is a fictional character. How did she react to the global pandemic? Did she retreat into her flat and behave with caution? Did she survive?


And now, as tragic events unfold in Ukraine, I ask: what would Galina do? While I would love to imagine that she would rustle up a placard and join Yelena Osipova on the streets, I know this is extremely unlikely. Many Russians, especially from the older generation, believe the narrative they are being fed on the TV news: Russia is on a peacekeeping mission, the Russian army would not possibly obliterate entire towns with bombs, it is beyond possibility that the whole operation is a built on a lie, the west is always against us-this is no different etc... Others, who do not believe the lies are terrified to join protests. It is only a scant few who bravely take to the streets. Would Galina join a protest and risk being thrown in prison for eight years?


There is a fierce divide between those who believe Putin’s version of events and those who don’t. Schisms are growing between people–mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, husbands and wives, friends. Many of us can relate to this sort of painful wedge as we have all experienced similar over BREXIT, covid vaccination, Trump, etc...


Much like my novel, this rambling post has an open ending. I just wanted to spread the word about Yelena Osipova. I don’t know what Galina or Putin will do. But I do know that the heated argument I had with a friend on the tennis court over BREXIT seems rather silly now.

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Bio

Originally from Michigan, Molly Gartland worked in Moscow from 1994 to 2000 and has been fascinated by Russian culture ever since.

She has an MA in Creative Writing from St Mary’s University, Twickenham and lives in London.

The manuscript for her debut novel The Girl from the Hermitage was shortlisted for the Impress Prize and longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Competition, the Bath Novel Award and Grindstone Novel Award.

She is currently working on her second novel, Mrs. Jordan's Final Act, which has been shortlisted for the Historical Novel Society First Chapters Competition.

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