{"product_id":"the-girl-from-the-metropol-ludmilla-petrushevskaya-9780143129974","title":"The Girl from the Metropol Hotel: Growing Up in Communist Russia","description":"\u003cb\u003eFinalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe prizewinning memoir of one of the world's great writers, about coming of age \u003cb\u003eas an enemy of the people \u003c\/b\u003eand finding her voice in Stalinist Russia \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Born across the street from the Kremlin in the opulent Metropol Hotel--the setting of the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003ebestselling novel \u003ci\u003eA Gentleman in Moscow \u003c\/i\u003eby Amor Towles--Ludmilla Petrushevskaya grew up in a family of Bolshevik intellectuals who were reduced in the wake of the Russian Revolution to waiting in bread lines. In \u003ci\u003eThe Girl from the Metropol Hotel\u003c\/i\u003e, her prizewinning memoir, she recounts her childhood of extreme deprivation--of wandering the streets like a young Edith Piaf, singing for alms, and living by her wits like Oliver Twist, a diminutive figure far removed from the heights she would attain as an internationally celebrated writer. As she unravels the threads of her itinerant upbringing--of feigned orphandom, of sleeping in freight cars and beneath the dining tables of communal apartments, of the fugitive pleasures of scraps of food--we see, both in her remarkable lack of self-pity and in the two dozen photographs throughout the text, her feral instinct and the crucible in which her gift for giving voice to a nation of survivors was forged. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"From heartrending facts Petrushevskaya concocts a humorous and lyrical account of the toughest childhood and youth imaginable. . . . It  belongs] alongside the classic stories of humanity's beloved plucky child heroes: Edith Piaf, Charlie Chaplin, the Artful Dodger, Gavroche, David Copperfield. . . . The child is irresistible and so is the adult narrator who creates a poignant portrait from the rags and riches of her memory.\" --\u003cb\u003eAnna Summers, from the Introduction\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Ludmilla Petrushevskaya\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 014312997X\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780143129974\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Penguin Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 02\/07\/2017\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 176\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.35lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 7.70h x 5.00w x 0.50d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 11\/15\/2016\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 12\/05\/2016\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e 02\/01\/2017 pg. 11","brand":"Ludmilla Petrushevskaya","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44043269570815,"sku":"9780143129974","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_6b0ba0fe-69a9-4f07-8f00-073f928139bf.jpg?v=1684966194","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-girl-from-the-metropol-ludmilla-petrushevskaya-9780143129974","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}