For The Love of a Poet by Marilyn Z. Tomlins

About the author: Marilyn lives and writes in Paris. She writes whatever takes her fancy: spoof news, book reviews, posts for her website, gossip about showbiz stars and royalty, short stories, poetry – and books. She also reports crime. She was born in British Colonial Africa and is a British national. Eight years ago she became interested in the Second World War French serial killer, Dr Marcel Petiot, and she researched him for two years and then over the next two years she wrote her true-crime book DIE IN PARIS. Next, setting murder aside, she wrote the novel BELLA … A FRENCH LIFE, an emotive love story set in Paris and the beautiful Normandy coastal region of France. Russia, a passion of hers, she has planned For the Love of a Poet for at least ten years.

About the book: ‘I have been obsessed with this man for years. My parents say I have a crush on him. I have been telling them it is not a crush. It is reverence. Reverence not only for the man but so too for his talent: his poetry. If anyone asks me whether I have a wish, I will say, if only I can meet the poet Beretzkoy.’ These are the wistful words of Tanya Brodovskaya. Her wish comes true, although the poet is a married man and the father of two sons, and soon a heady, passionate love affair begins. In a small, dilapidated dacha in a village south of Moscow, played out against a grim backcloth of Stalin’s demonic rule of Russia, Tanya and her dissident poet live their love to the full, stealing precious and wonderful time, finding happiness in each other’s arms although he continues to live with his wife and sons. But black clouds gather. The Man of Steel’s policies threaten the couple’s idyll. Their love will survive; they know it will. But will they?

A Russian love story.

Gerald Lombard, is on a mission, he is searching for Tanya Brodovskaya, he knows how to recognise her, and so he goes to Red Square, after all, he’s been told, she is always there ‘on any Wednesday.’ Then he sees her, just as she had been described to him, and she agrees to tell her story, and so the biography begins…

This is the story of the love between an older man, and a naive young girl whom he met, in 1931, when she worked at the offices of Pravda in Moscow.

Tanya Brodovskaya, had been infatuated with the poet Boris Petrovich Beretzkoy, for a long time, however, on that day, when he took her hands in his, their lives were about to change forever.

As they say, love is blind, and when one is in such a state, nothing else matters, barriers such as age and marital status are overcome in the bat of an eyelid. Thus began their love affair, one in which Boris shaped her life, and she accepted the restrictions, making sacrifices, and giving up on dreams, freely, as only a woman who is in love will do.

It is Russia, Lenin has just died, and Stalin has taken over the reins of this enormous, harsh country. It is a country which is in a state of political unrest and turmoil, its people living in fear for their lives never knowing when they are going to be dragged away and interrogated, or deported to Siberia, some never to return…

Life for the Russian people is hard. The country is suffering from terrible famine, and pandemics ravage the country’s population, who are already weak and living in terrible conditions.

As you read this book, you realise that not only are you following the lives of these two lovers, but you are also being given an insight into this turbulent period in Russian history.

The book I believe, is based on two real people, although the names have been changed. Through meticulous research, the author has written a very thought provoking and fascinating story, which lovers of modern history will enjoy.

I am informed by the author that a French translation is available.

Reviewed by Susan Keefe
(28 May 2014)