Russian Winter LP »

Born and raised in New Jersey, Daphne Kalotay is a graduate of Vassar College and of Boston University, where she received an MA in creative writing and a Ph.D. in literature. Her short stories have appeared in various literary journals and magazines, and she has taught literature and writing at Middlebury College and Boston University. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

When Nina Revskaya, former star of the Bolshoi Ballet, decides to auction her remarkable jewelry, she hopes to draw a curtain on her past. Instead, she is overwhelmed by memories of glorious and heartbreaking events that changed her life's course half a century before.

In Russia, she discovered the theater, fell in love with a famed poet, and became—with her closest friends—a victim of Stalinist aggression. A terrible discovery led to a deadly act of betrayal—and to Nina's escape to Boston. Now, an associate at the Boston auction house and a Russian professor are unraveling a mystery surrounding a love letter, a poem, and a necklace of unknown provenance, stirring up revelations that will have life-altering consequences for all.

Publishers Weekly

Kalotay makes a powerful debut with a novel about a Soviet-era prima ballerina, now retired and living in Boston, who confronts her past as she puts up for auction the jewelry she took with her when she left her husband and defected. Nina "The Butterfly" Revskaya, 79, reveals little about the past to curious auction house representative Drew Brooks as he peruses her cache of exquisite jewelry. Nina likewise rebuffs inquiries from foreign language professor Grigori Solodin, who has translated the works of Nina's poet husband and who offers an additional item for auction: the amber necklace he inherited from the parents he never knew. In extended flashbacks, Nina recalls intimate moments and misunderstandings with her husband, happy and disturbing times with his Jewish composer best friend, and encounters with her own childhood friend. Meanwhile, Drew and Grigori delve into the jewelry's provenance, hoping to learn as much about the jewels as their own pasts. While the Soviet-era romance can lean too much on melodrama, Kalotay turns out a mostly entrancing story thanks to a skillful depiction of artistic life behind the Iron Curtain and intriguing glimpses into auction house operations. (Sept.)