August 1, 2024
Bestselling and award-winning Littell (A Plague on Both Your Houses) imagines 10 weeks in the life of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in 1917. Driven from Russia and on the run, Trotsky arrives in New York and contemplates his purpose in the weeks leading up to the February Revolution that toppled Czar Nicholas II. Prepub Alert.
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November 1, 2024
The veteran spy novelist indulges what he calls an "obsession" with Leon Trotsky to imagine the Russian's brief New York sojourn. Born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, Trotsky took his better-known name from one of his prison guards. Littell mentions in a foreword that his own father was born Leon Litzky, but he had the surname legally changed in 1919 to Littell because of its resemblance to the infamous revolutionary's nom de guerre. This nominal link is why, the novelist says, he "couldn't resist fantasizing" about Trotsky's 10 weeks in New York just before the 1917 revolution erupted. Trotsky sails with his longtime companion and their two sons in early 1917 to New York, where his fame has preceded him. J. Edgar Hoover conducts his immigration interview, a likely anachronism, and the press greets him on the pier. Trotsky moves into an apartment in the Bronx and begins writing for the Russian-language newspaperNovy Mir and theJewish Daily Forward. He begins an affair with a journalist named Frederika Fedora, who has ties through her father to Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. He gives speeches and argues with various emigres and sympathizers, including Nikolai Bukharin and Eugene Debs. The average reader might be mystified by the factional nuance and rhetoric that emerge among committed Socialists, Bolsheviks, and Mensheviks. The U.S. visit comes to an end when the czar abdicates and Trotsky feels he must return to a Russia where revolution has begun again. While the historical characters are little more than foils and talking heads, Littell creates a well-rounded personality in Trotsky. Some of the character development derives from his highly active and vocal conscience, whose contrarian bent constantly tests the man's convictions and assertions. And note that Trotsky associates his conscience with a "childhood nemesis" named Leon Litzky--which may make sense if you're fantasizing about an obsession. A colorful but uneven venture into historical fiction.
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November 18, 2024
Espionage novelist Littell (The Company) tries his hand at historical fiction in this charming reimagining of the 10 weeks Leon Trotsky spent in the Bronx. From the moment the exiled Trotsky, his companion Natalya, and their two young sons step off a tramp steamer on Ellis Island in January 1917, J. Edgar Hoover’s Bureau of Investigation is on his tail. He and Natalya set up house in the Bronx, where, in between writing for a Russian-language socialist newspaper, he gives speeches opposing U.S. entry into WWI, prompting Hoover and his men to arrest him for sedition and incitement to riot. After enduring a harsh interrogation by Hoover, he’s bailed out by American socialist politician Algernon Lee. In February, news of the Russian Revolution prompts Trotsky to return with his family to Russia, bringing the novel to its hopeful conclusion—one that’s coolly ironic given the real Trotsky’s tragic fate. An air of irreverence pervades this account, which is full of winking anachronisms that poke fun at Trotsky and his fellow idealists (“It ain’t Jules Verne rocket science,” asserts a socialist about the invention of the light bulb, which allows factories to further exploit workers). Littell’s fans will love this playful swerve. Agent: Robin Straus, Robin Straus Agency.