There is a lot to like about Elliott Holt’s novel, You are One of Them. I was hooked by the title – a play on the Russian term “svoi chelovek” one of us, which had been so important to Vera and me. In the Cold War atmosphere, we Americans and Russians did not see our commonality, but our differences. It was “us versus them.” Had the title not captured me, the first sentence would have, “The first defector was my sister.”
Unlike our book, this is a novel and reminiscent of my favorite young adult books. Sarah has her own angst within her family and feels like an outcast until she meets Jenny, the best friend that she idealizes. Like Alla and Vera, the friendship of these two girls is also rocky and a bit competitive. Terrified of nuclear war and convinced of her own superpower of persuasion, ten-year-old, Sarah convinces Jenny to join her in writing to the new head of the USSR, Yuri Andropov, to ask for peace. Sarah is livid when Mr. Andropov invites Jenny and not her to visit the USSR. The trip leads Jenny to become a strong friend of Russia and eventually to disappear from Sarah’s life. A decade later, Sarah moves to Moscow in an attempt to retrace the steps of her lost friend.
Meryll and I read this book after completing ours. I was fascinated that fifteen years after my journey, Holt was noticing the same details as I had, though her setting is Moscow in the 90s, not Leningrad in the 70s. She vividly describes babushki freely criticizing people on the street for not dressing correctly, the state of constant remont (renovation) and most disturbing, the confusion over who is and who is not trustworthy. Each person one meets is assessed and judged to be informant or friend. In the most confounding cases, the person can be both. I also appreciated the thread of suspicion and paranoia underlying this story. This novel mirrors Russian reality in that it was very difficult to discern truth from artifice, especially during Soviet times.
Holt is a beautiful writer and her phrasing is so poetic that I found myself rereading sections for their evocative imagery. Even though this is a description of Moscow, most Minnesotans would relate to it currently.
"Even before the snow fell, the color drained out of the sky. Everything was desaturated and gray. The horizon line vanished into the monotone. I could see how weather might calcify a person, how enough days without sun could make you hard. How your humor might get bleaker, how cynicism might take root. The air was glass and sharp, and being outside made me feel ready to break." (p. 182)
Elliott Holt, You are One of Them. NY: Penguin Press, 2013. Fiction.