About The Book
‘A masterwork, a Dr. Zhivago for our times...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.
—Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi
When the Great Depression hits, Florence Fein leaves Brooklyn College for a job in Moscow—and the promise of love and independence. But once in Russia, she quickly becomes entangled in a country she can’t escape. Many years later, Florence’s son, Julian, immigrates back to the United States, though his work in the oil industry takes him on frequent visits to Moscow. When he learns that Florence’s KGB file has been opened, he arranges a business trip to uncover the truth about his mother, and to convince his son, Lenny—trying to make his fortune in Putin’s cutthroat Russia—to return home. What Julian discovers is both chilling and heartbreaking: an untold story of a generation of Americans abandoned by their country, and the secret history of two rival nations colluding under the cover of enmity.
About Sana
Sana Krasikov is the author of the story collection One More Year, which received a National Book Foundation’s ‘5 under 35’ Award, The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award and the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Prize. Her novel The Patriots was picked for Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists list and won France’s Prix du Premier Roman Étranger for best new international novel. Krasikov’s short stories have appeared in numerous publications including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Zoetrope, A Public Space, and the O. Henry Anthology. Her latest story will appear in Best American Short Stories of 2023. Sana has also written extensively for radio. Together with her husband, Gregory Warner, she was co-creator of NPR’s popular narrative podcast ‘Rough Translation’ which brought listeners intimate stories from around the world.
PRESS
“Urgently relevant. The Patriots asks huge, complex questions about identity, loyalty, truth and self-deception.” —The Guardian
“[The Patriots] 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.”
—Nathaniel Rich, The New York Times Book Review
“Extraordinary . . . a deep meditation on the relationship between parent and child . . . The Patriots has the weight of a classic.”
—Commentary
"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
“When Sana Krasikov started to write The Patriots, her big and boldly imagined new novel about Russia and America, she could hardly have predicted how timely it would be… It is [Krasikov’s] appetite for fictional challenges that makes The Patriots such an impressive book. She is writing the kind of historical epic that used to dominate the bestseller lists—Herman Wouk and James Michener are part of the book’s DNA, as well as Pasternak and Tolstoy—but that few writers take on anymore.”
–Tablet
“Dazzling and addictive . . . an outstanding family saga…As an intelligent literary commentary on Russo-American relations of the past century, it’s unparalleled.”
– The Spectator
“Krasikov skillfully moves between voices and decades…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
“[Krasikov’s] fluency in the complex interactions between Russia and America shapes her first novel, an involving, suspenseful, and astute cross-cultural saga…With scintillating language and transporting narrative command… Krasikov dramatizes hidden, shameful facets of history…In a galvanizing tale of flawed and courageous protagonists, erotic and political passion, and harrowing struggles for survival, Krasikov masterfully and devastatingly exposes the ‘whole dark clockwork’ of totalitarianism and asks what it means to be a hero, a patriot, a human being.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Rooted in history and meticulously researched, this is a piece of fiction that feels intensely relevant.”
—Newsweek
‘Krasikov has a real gift for storytelling... A compelling and sometimes desperately moving read...”
—Jewish Chronicle
Hey HEY hey - The Patriots has been made into a Wiki!
