The Secrets We Kept: Reese's Book Club: A Novel

Somewhere, my love, is a literary and political thriller more compelling than The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott, but I haven’t seen a competitor in a long, long time. The plot revolves around efforts in the 1950s by the CIA to smuggle Boris Pasternak’s novel, Dr. Zhivago, into Russia, where the agency hoped its central theme of individualism and the desire for freedom from oppression, government interference, etc. would inspire transformational change in the hearts and minds of everyday Russian citizens. Or something like that. We still live in hope.There is some evidence that the CIA covert actions behind the dissemination of the novel were, in fact, true. Having read many years ago Bob Woodward’s book, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, not much about the CIA actions during William Casey’s tenure (and that of Bill “Wild Bill” Donovan and others before him) surprises me. I distinctly remember events like the illegal mining of harbors in Nicaragua while Reagan nodded off in staff meetings. But I digress….The construction of the novel is like a medieval passion play, with vignette after vignette passing before you, all contributing to the plot and pacing, and all from multiple perspectives. (Sometimes this was a little confusing as you ciphered out sudden shifts in voice.) There are even multiple scenes from the viewpoint of the CIA Typing Pool, whose members were clacking away in the postwar years on top-secret minutes and reports. Not to give too much away, but one of the CIA Directors raped a typist in one scene, egregious enough, even in fiction. (The CIA sponsorship of the overthrow of the government of Chile and the related death of Allende, was, alas, all too true. Happily, the buzzer sounded on most of this cowboy stuff with the Iran Contra hearings….)The novel includes scenes of the private lives of Pasternak and his family, featuring prominently his muse and mistress, Olga Ivinskaya, in so far as these scenes related to the ultimate theme of publishing Dr. Zhivago. A leitmotif of the novel was the effort to get the novel published in Russia against a backdrop of fusty, often invisible, impenetrable government censors and bureaucrats. The gulag and exile were very much real and imagined presences. The novel was actually published first in Italy, after being smuggled out of Russia in manuscript form with the complicity of Pasternak himself. Fortunately for the world of letters, the Italian publisher recognized its value to the world of ideas, validated by the eventual awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Pasternak. (Not to complicate the story any more than is necessary, but he originally refused the prize, bowing to Communist Party pressure and threats against the artist and his family and associates.)If you like literature and stories of bringing a work to publication, this is the best tale since Guttenberg. Entertainment Weekly said, “Prescott combines Mad Men-esque period style with a spy story worthy of John le Carre.” Publisher’s Weekly wrote, “Through lucid images and vibrant storytelling, Prescott creates an edgy postfeminist vision of the Cold War, encompassing Sputnik to glasnost, typing pool to Gulag, for a smart, lively page-turner. This debut shines as spy story, publication thriller, and historical romance with a twist.”This novel was indeed Precott’s first book. The author, 37 when the novel was published in 2019, spent much of her pre-writing career working on Democratic political campaigns, assisting with the campaigns of Rahm Emanuel in Chicago and Jerry Brown in California and others, helping with speechwriting and position papers, etc. (She has a Master’s degree in Political Science from American University). But ultimately the urge to write led her to drop these endeavors to enroll in the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, where, in the course of her studies there, conceived the nuclear idea for this novel. I found two things about this period of particular interest. First, she was rejected the first time she applied for graduate admission to the University of Texas but re-applied successfully a year later. And early on in the writing of the book, a high- profile literary agent told her, “No one is interested in Russia anymore.” She ultimately sold the book for $2 million, and it has been optioned for a movie. I guess the agent was wrong.She’s now exploring a new novel related to the Depression-era Federal Writer’s Project. The New York Times said Prescott is also “fascinated by the world of fake news—who writes it, and why and how it spreads. She’d love to chronicle her dream candidate Elizabeth Warren on the campaign trail…” (Read Warren’s book, A Fighting Chance, as I did and you’ll see why.)Read The Secrets We Kept at least once. You’ll be glad you did.

Words are powerful. This novel tells an interwoven story of Boris Pasternak, his mistress, his novel Dr. Zhivago, and the intelligence services of the United States. The story shifts in time between Russia at the time when Pasternak is writing Dr. Zhivago and a bit later to after the novel has been written. It also shifts between characters from the Russian cast and the predominately American characters. The reader’s view of the intelligence services is primarily through the eyes of the women who were largely confined to the typing pool. It is obvious that a lot of talent (including seasoned talent with significant war-time OSS experience) is being wasted on the sidelines. Pasternak was not given permission to publish his novel in Russian since it deem to have anti-Soviet views. That ban made the novel attractive to the American intelligence service as a potential asset/weapon in the Cold War. That ban may have also influenced the Noble Prize committee to award its literary prize to Pasternak for his body of work including his poems and this novel. The story is as fascinating as it was unknown to me. Visions of Omar Shariff, Julie Christie, and ice from the movie version of Dr. Zhivago were ever present in my thoughts as I read. (That’s a good thing!) There are subplots in both the Russian portion and the American that are not closely related to Dr. Zhivago. The subplots serve to flesh out the novel and to give more dimension to the secret world of spies in the Cold War era and the oppressive police state of Pasternak. I recently read the Noise of Time by Julien Barnes about Russia’s treatment of Shostakovich during the Stalin era. This is a nation that takes its art and artists very seriously, and, in an oppressive society, that is not a good thing for artists. Toxic. The two books are vastly different, but consistent in their portrayal of the political atmosphere and the burdens placed on the artists to denounce each other upon request. Unlike The Noise of Time, this is not a literary novel. It is historical fiction that sometimes feels contrived. I did appreciate some of the historical details, like the reactions to the launch of Sputnik. The characters are often flat which leaves the reader less connected to the dramatic story. Things that should have touched my heart, often did not. There are lots of secrets kept by the characters, and there are secrets betrayed. Ultimately secrets are isolating and they make you vulnerable to betrayal no matter how close you might hold them. It may not be a novel that is written well enough to lead to a Nobel Prize for its author, but it was written well enough to hold my interest and keep the pages turning quickly.

For a debut novel, Prescott did not shy away from multiple points of view, a fictional accounting of a time and place many readers personally experienced (hands up to those who can still hum the opening bars of “Lara’s Theme!). Plus, the 50’s and early 60’s are tough to write about — there was a lot going on and most of it was well under the surface.Prescott has a way with words—She very much captured the typing pool, the details of surviving in a humid city (stuffing a paper towel in your girdle, I could see my mother-in-law doing just that.) Her description of the gulag where the cold was penetrating a woman’s little toe snapped off made me shiver.Still-as much as I enjoyed bits and pieces of the book, I wasn’t sure what the story was about. It wasn’t about sacrifice and subterfuge in writing and publishing “Dr. Zhivago”. It wasn’t really about how women were relegated to traditional roles (typing pool) after mastering the skills of espionage and resistance. It touched upon the fear and paranoia of the Cold War on both sides of the Iron Curtain.What was the story, then? It’s a love story, a story of the depth and persistence of working through a forbidden love. Olga’s love for Pasternak — where sharing him with his wife, his work, and the world was worth the price of re-education in the gulag, risking her children’s future, and more. With Irina, her counterpoint was the strength of her love for another woman.