A review by miklosha
Fear by Anatoli Rybakov
5.0
Stalins pursuit of a Party cleansing is under way and woe betide those who, through bad timing or bad placement, get "caught", arrested, tried, and either shot or sent to the camps.
All this at the same time the original group of students are growing up into their own. Yuri as NKVD, Sasha post-exile, Varya afar, Vadim navigating a world of art through state oppression. How these stories are weaved through with the peaking paranoia of Stalin is a feat and Rybakov wrote with such vividness that its hard not to see this trilogy come to life.
The last, dust and ashes, will carry this story to its inevitable end.
All this at the same time the original group of students are growing up into their own. Yuri as NKVD, Sasha post-exile, Varya afar, Vadim navigating a world of art through state oppression. How these stories are weaved through with the peaking paranoia of Stalin is a feat and Rybakov wrote with such vividness that its hard not to see this trilogy come to life.
The last, dust and ashes, will carry this story to its inevitable end.