The Patriots

“The Patriots is a historical romance in the old style: multigenerational, multi-narrative, intercontinental, laden with back stories and historical research, moving between scrupulous detail and sweeping panoramas, the first-person voice and a kaleidoscopic third, melodrama and satire, Cleveland in 1933 and Moscow in 2008. It contains a wartime romance, a gulag redemption story, a kleptocratic comedy of manners, a family saga. . . . Krasikov had no way of knowing that her novel would be published just as America is witnessing the ascension of a ruler who calls for jailing his opponents, proposes to weaken the First Amendment and uncritically quotes Russian propaganda. But this turn of events gives urgency to her main theme—the insidious influence of totalitarianism on the lives of those trapped under its boot. . . . [and her scenes of corruption and impossible struggle belong] to a rich tradition of Russian writing about the petty absurdities of life under totalitarian rule. ”—Nathaniel Rich, The New York Times Book Review

“Extraordinary . . . The Patriots has the weight of a classic. . . . [Sana] Krasikov’s research has an exemplary thoroughness, whether describing a Stalin rally, or a Thai sex parlour, or listing the parts of a jet fighter. . . . [Krasikov] has a sardonic eye and ear, and there is occasional humor. . . . The mechanics of the plot are more or less faultless. . . . This is a book that informs as it questions. It has moral purpose. It gives us essentially the entire history of the USSR. It challenges readers to wonder what decisions they would have made in similar circumstances. And it tells us of how hope can be used against a population. Its fiction tells a true story that should be heard more often. It is also a deep meditation on the relationship between parent and child. . . . [a] great and greatly necessary novel.”—Commentary Magazine

“Dazzling and addictive . . . an outstanding family saga.”—The Spectator (U.K.)

“A thoroughly researched and deeply felt historical novel . . . Krasikov skillfully moves between voices and decades, never neglecting the moral difficulties of life under a totalitarian regime. There is compassion here, as well as humor, but most of all, a keen awareness of how people strive to be good in dire circumstances. The Patriots is an ambitious, unsentimental and astonishingly masterful first novel with a singular portrayal of living by conviction, no matter the cost.”—BookPage

“The Patriots is a sustained feat of brilliance, weaving eight decades, three generations, and two continents of historical tumult and personal struggle into a remarkable tapestry. Sana Krasikov deserves comparison to the Russian masters whose novels her own so often evokes.”—Anthony Marra, author of The Tsar of Love and Techno and A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

“I admit I had high expectations for The Patriots. Fortunately, I had only to read the prologue to suspect that the hugely gifted Sana Krasikov may have leapt over them. What followed, a sweeping, ambitious kaleidoscope of family, faith, identity, idealism, and displacement, only confirmed my early impression. I found on every page an observation so acute, a sentence of such truth and shining detail, that it demanded re-reading for the sheer pleasure of it. The Patriots has convinced me that Krasikov belongs among the totemic young writers of her era.”—Khaled Hosseini, author of And the Mountains Echoed and The Kite Runner

“The Patriots is a masterwork, a Dr. Zhivago for our times. It is a novel rooted in characters so real you weep over their tragic fates, so realized you think you’re watching a movie, with sentences so sharp and wise they stop you in your tracks. The story of dreamy Florence Fein, from Flatbush, Brooklyn, will break your heart.”—Yann Martel, author of The High Mountains of Portugal and Life of Pi