The best book I read this month was a spy story, but one that had far more depth and nuance than any James Bond tale. Laura Prescott’s The Secrets We Kept tells the story of the novel Doctor Zhivago but from the perspectives of women: Pasternak’s mistress tells the story of its publication and women who work at the CIA as typists and spies tell the story of how it was smuggled back into the Soviet Union.
In these stories, we get a sense of life on both sides of the Cold War during the 1950s. The lives of Irina and Sally in the United States feel like technicolor compared to that of Olga in the Soviet Union, and I found the story of Irina and Sally’s friendship the most compelling part of the book.
I admit there were times I wasn’t sure at first who was narrating a particular chapter, even with the clues in the chapter titles, but I found the story engaging and I especially appreciated the female perspective on what has traditionally been a male genre.