Review by New York Times Review
M.T. ANDERSON has done wonders with bleakness. His 2002 dystopia "Feed" is an unnerving portrait of an information-overloaded, environmentally ravaged future. "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing," a National Book Award winner set in colonial Boston, follows a boy doubly exploited as an experimental subject and a slave. In "Symphony for the City of the Dead," his first nonfiction work for teenagers, he takes on one of the grimmest chapters in world history. Following the relentless downward spiral of Soviet society under Stalin's rule and German assault, he shows how one piece of music played a role that was, to different ears, redemptive, consoling and rousing. The book, which has been longlisted for a 2015 National Book Award, begins like a suspense movie: A mysterious microfilm is transported from the Soviet Union to the United States "across steppe, sand, sea and jungle" in the midst of World War II. The microfilm contains the score for Dmitri Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony, much of which he wrote during air raids in his native city. The Soviet hope is that American performances might strengthen the new alliance. From here, Anderson goes back in time, bringing together in a sometimes ungainly way a portrait of the composer, astute discussions of his work and detailed descriptions of Stalin's wildly destructive domestic and military policies. His take on Shostakovich is sympathetic but necessarily distanced; the composer, Anderson makes clear, was living under "a regime where words are watched, lies are rewarded, and silence is survival." Shostakovich's career started promisingly amid an exciting climate of creative experimentation. But Anderson shows that by the 1930s, prominent artists, including Shostakovich, were routinely denounced for ideological failings. Harassment and deadly punishments became widespread. The effects of Stalin's terror campaign could be detected in Shostakovich's unsettling Fourth Symphony. As Anderson puts it, "It is as if the composer, having been brutalized, now turns and enacts this savagery upon the audience." After the purges and food shortages Anderson describes, it may be surprising to young readers that beleaguered citizens rallied to the fight when Germany attacked in June 1941. Shostakovich tried to enlist, was rejected and turned instead to creating music for the masses. As bombs hit Leningrad, he worked on a new symphony, probably hoping to raise morale as well as protect himself from attack. When the Germans adopted a strategy of starving Leningrad, Shostakovich was relocated with his family to the east. Anderson doesn't neglect the Leningraders who couldn't get out. By January 1942, thousands were dying every day. Pets were eaten, and then came cannibalism. He notes that the young were frequent victims; one police station had crates of small clothing divided by the district in which the children were eaten. Anderson tells of many examples of caring and cooperation, but they may make less of an impression than the roaming cannibals. Anderson's account of the symphony's premieres in New York and Leningrad provides some welcome shifts of mood. Once the performance was announced, the American public went wild for what a promoter called "this hot baby of a Seventh Symphony." Shostakovich was featured on the cover of Time magazine, and even Hollywood was interested. The Soviet goal was to increase American military support, and the symphony helped convince the American public to back this effort. The difficulties surrounding the August 1942 Leningrad premiere were staggering since most musicians had fled the city or starved to death. Fifteen showed up at the first rehearsal, but they were almost too weak to play. Four months later, the performance gave tremendous hope to both the audience and the musicians. Broadcast through loudspeakers all over the city and even at the front lines, the concert, in one musician's words, "was our answer to the suffering." Shostakovich ended his Seventh Symphony on a triumphal note, but Anderson never suggests that the suffering ended that night in Leningrad. The siege lasted many more months, ultimately killing about one and a half million Russians. Anderson's book is an elegy above all. ABBY McGANNEY nolan is working on a history of American utopian communities.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 11, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Dmitri Shostakovich was witness to an almost overwhelming number of changes and transformations in his native Russia. From the rise of Communism under Lenin to Stalin's Great Terror and, perhaps most monumentally, the Siege of Leningrad, the Russian composer was there, often drawn dangerously close to the clutches of Stalin's seemingly random rage. All the while, he defiantly wrote moving, galvanizing music. In his first book-length work of nonfiction, Anderson skillfully interweaves details from Shostakovich's life into pivotal historical moments, particularly Russia's role in WWII, brilliantly elucidating some of the more puzzling parts of Russian history. His frequent descriptions of Shostakovich's music are vivid, evoking odd yet fitting images to call to mind sounds or moods, then loosely tying those moods to events. It's a powerful tactic that does double duty, spotlighting the innovative narrative quality of Shostakovich's music while showcasing how he was influenced by the turbulent period, which, in turn, gives readers some insight into the mindset of Russian citizens under Stalin's tyrannical reign. In a gripping narrative, helped by ample photos and shockingly accurate historical details, Anderson offers readers a captivating account of a genius composer and the brutally stormy period in which he lived. Though easily accessible to teens, this fascinating, eye-opening, and arresting book is just as appealing to adults.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Anderson's ambitious nonfiction hybrid strives to meld the history of the bloody events of Russia from the 1917 Revolution through its transformation into the Soviet Union to the atrocities of WWII with a biography of prolific Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), who was both a victim and a hero of the times he lived in. Anderson has clearly done his research, much of it original, and some of the strongest chapters-especially one on starvation and cannibalism in Leningrad during the winter of 1942-are filled with gruesome details from primary sources. But his treatment of Shostakovich's life and character is often speculative, failing to richly evoke the composer's passion and talent for music. In some heavily historical chapters, Shostakovich is only a minor presence. With numerous anecdotes incorporating language like "apparently," "supposedly," and "may have," Anderson draws attention to the difficulty of verifying source material from this historical period in Russia, even questioning one of the major sources on Shostakovich's life. A fascinating, if uneven, examination of an important musical figure living in a time of extraordinary political and social turmoil. Ages 14-up. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-This ambitious and gripping work is narrative nonfiction at its best. Anderson expertly sets the scene of the tumultuous world into which Dmitri Shostakovich was born in 1906 and traces his development as an artist and a public figure. He also tells the story of the composer's beloved Leningrad, focusing on the creation and legacy of the symphony written in its honor at the height of World War II. In his author's note, Anderson poses an intriguing question: "How do we reconstruct the story of someone who lived in a period in which everyone had an excuse to lie, evade, accuse, or keep silent?" The compelling, well-researched narrative relates what is known of Shostakovich's story, what is speculation, what is revisionist history, and what new sources have revealed. The chilling details of the Stalin regime and the plight of the Russian people even before the Germans arrived will be eye-opening to many teen readers. The book has all the intrigue of a spy thriller, recounts the horrors of living during the three year siege, and delineates the physical oppression and daunting foes within and outside of the city. This is also the story of survival against almost impossible odds. Through it all, Anderson weaves the thread of the composer's music and the role it played in this larger-than-life drama. VERDICT A must-have title with broad crossover appeal-Luann Toth, School Library Journal © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Accomplished novelist Anderson presents an ambitious work of nonfiction encompassing the life of composer Dmitri Shostakovich, the early political history of the U.S.S.R., and the nations horrific suffering during WWII. Initially inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution, Shostakovichs music changed as he witnessed friends and family suffer torture, disappearance, and death during Stalins Reign of Terror. Alternately denounced and celebrated by Soviet authorities, Shostakovich lived in fear of the NKVD arriving at his door. The books centerpiece is his Leningrad Symphony, embraced by audiences and the authorities alike; the varied movements offered both catharsis and hope at the nations darkest hour. Was Shostakovich a Soviet propagandist or covert dissenter, telling truths through his music about Stalins atrocities against his own people? Anderson notes the challenge of researching a subject for whose life even the basic factsare often contested; this uncertainty results in the sometimes distracting reliance on perhaps and supposedly. The densely packed account changes focus throughout, from poetic descriptions of the composers work to stark depictions of starvation in Leningrad and the disastrous effects of Stalins purges. Narrative momentum rises and falls unevenly as the story shifts; its a lot to process for readers, for whom most of the material will be new. An extensive selection of black-and-white photographs helps define the wide range of subjects and settings; meticulous scholarship is evident in the detailed source notes, bibliography, and the authors note addressing the credibility of research material. There are few composers whose music and whose own lives reflect so exactly the trials and triumphs of the nation, Anderson writesrevealing his reason and inspiration for this sweeping and emotionally charged account of events during Shostakovichs lifetime. lauren adams (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The epic tale of the siege of Leningrad and its native son, composer Dmitri Shostakovich, whose seventh symphony comforted, consoled, and rallied a population subjected to years of unspeakable suffering. Anderson vividly chronicles the desperate lengths residents went to, including acts of cannibalism, to survive the Wehrmacht's siege, a 3-year-long nightmare that left more than 1 million citizens dead. The richly layered narrative offers a keen-eyed portrait of life in the paranoid, ruthlessly vengeful Stalinist Soviet Union, its citizens living under a regime so capriciously evil that one could be heralded a hero of the motherland one day and condemned as a traitor the next. The storytelling is captivating, describing how Shostakovich began composing the symphony under relentless bombardment in Leningrad and later finished it in Moscow, its triumphant performance in Leningrad during the siege, and how it rallied worldwide sympathy for Russia's plight. Music is at the heart of the story. As Anderson writes in the prologue, "it is a story about the power of music and its meanings," and he communicates them with seeming effortlessness in this brilliantly written, impeccably researched tour de force. A triumphant story of bravery and defiance that will shock and inspire. (photos, author's note, sources notes, bibliography, index) (Biography. 14 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
