{"product_id":"russian-sister-book-caroline-adderson-9781443426817","title":"A Russian Sister","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn\u003cbr\u003e this witty and colourfully peopled novel, Caroline Adderson effortlessly\u003cbr\u003e plunges the reader into a nineteenth-century Russian tragicomedy. Aspiring\u003cbr\u003e painter Masha C. is blindly devoted to Antosha, her famous writer-brother. Through\u003cbr\u003e the years Antosha takes up with numerous women from Masha's circle of friends,\u003cbr\u003e yet none of these relationships threaten the siblings' close ties until the\u003cbr\u003e winter he falls into a depression. Then Masha invites into their Moscow home a young\u003cbr\u003e woman who teaches with her--the beautiful, vivacious and deeply vulnerable Lika\u003cbr\u003e Mizanova--with the express hope she might help Antosha recover.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe\u003cbr\u003e appearance of Lika sets off a convolution of unrequited love, jealousy and\u003cbr\u003e scandal that lasts for seven years. If the famously unattainable writer has\u003cbr\u003e lost his heart to Lika as everyone claims, why does he undertake a\u003cbr\u003e life-threatening voyage to Sakhalin Island? And what will happen to Masha if\u003cbr\u003e she is demoted from \"woman of the house\" to \"spinster sister\"? While Antosha and\u003cbr\u003e Lika push and pull, Masha falls in love herself--with a man and with a mongoose--only\u003cbr\u003e to have her dreams crushed twice. From her own heartbreak Masha comes to recognize the harm that she has\u003cbr\u003e done to her friends by encouraging their involvement with Antosha, but it is\u003cbr\u003e too late for Lika, who will both sacrifice herself for love and be immortalized\u003cbr\u003e as the model for Nina in Chekhov's The Seagull.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cp\u003eA Russian\u003cbr\u003e Sister\u003cbr\u003e offers a clever commentary on the role of women as prey for male needs and inspiration,\u003cbr\u003e a role they continue to play today. At the same time the novel is a plea for\u003cbr\u003e sisterhood, both familial and friendly. Chekhov's The Seagull changed the theatre. A Russian Sister gives\u003cbr\u003e the reader a glimpse behind the curtain to the fascinating real-life people who\u003cbr\u003e inspired it and the tragedy that followed its premiere.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50383516369169,"sku":"CIN1443426814G","price":4.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1443426814.jpg?v=1750757348","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/russian-sister-book-caroline-adderson-9781443426817","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}