FEBRUARY 2023 - AudioFile
In 1973 Russia, the State chose talented school children to pursue careers in either ballet or gymnastics. Daphne Kouma offers a beautiful performance, meticulously detailing 8-year-old Anya's experiences. After Anya is chosen, we hear about her stresses, hopes, and dreams, as well as the damage to her body and mental state as she moves up the ranks of competitive gymnastics. Kouma recounts the intense pressure to achieve placed upon Anya and the other prepubescent girls and boys who are chosen. They starve themselves to remain small. When they’re injured, they’re taped, given injections and pills, and sent out to compete. Kouma’s credible Russian accents and outstanding character development make this a story filled with heart that listeners won’t soon forget. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
10/17/2022
Spanning two decades, this brooding mystery/bildungsroman from Meadows (I Will Send Rain) begins in Norilsk, Siberia, in 1973, with eight-year-old Anya Petrova’s acceptance into the Soviet gymnastics program. Anya’s father, pyrometallurgist Yuri, is relieved; now that the Motherland considers his daughter an asset, they will take care of her—something he’s felt increasingly unfit to do since his wife, Katerina, vanished three years earlier. Anya dreams of defying gravity, like Olympian Olga Korbut, and secretly hopes that if she makes the 1980 Moscow Olympics team, her mother will see her on television and come home. Katerina’s disillusionment with the Communist Party likely got her in trouble, but it’s also possible the former Bolshoi ballerina simply ran away to dance. Sections from the perspective of the Petrovas’ elderly neighbor, Vera Kuznetsova, detail her own decade in the gulag, as well as conversations Vera had with Katerina that contextualize her disappearance. Though Katerina isn’t the book’s focus, her absence looms large, informing Yuri and Anya’s every action. Meadows paints a poignant portrait of life behind the Iron Curtain, palpably conveying her vividly rendered characters’ deprivation, longing, and self-sacrifice. Fans of Megan Abbott’s You Will Know Me should take note. Agent: Elisabeth Weed, Book Group. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
"With meticulous precision and smart, poetic prose, Meadows vaults us into the chilling and eerily relevant world of Soviet-era gymnastics. Get ready to fall in love with eight-year-old Anya, who offers us a heart-wrenching view of what it means to live, love and compete in a sport where one wrong move or the whisper of dissent can ruin you. This book is full of heart."
—Georgia Hunter, New York Times bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones
"[Rae Meadows's] gemlike novel... rests—panting, gasping, breathing—in the span between Anya’s tiny but powerful shoulders. With every cracking bone and snapped ligament, we long for Anya’s success even as it imperils her. We long for her rescue even as we both know that success means buying only a little more time before the end."
–Megan Abbott, The New York Times
"Winterland gripped me from the first page. I loved this story of strong women fighting to keep their humanity in the face of terrible forces: Siberian winters, demanding gymnastics coaches, lost mothers and Gulag camps. Rae Meadows is a gifted writer, and I was thrilled to find myself in a landscape I knew nothing about, rooting for a young gymnast named Anya."
—Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Edward
“Winterland is a rich and powerful novel in which Rae Meadows displays her talents and her subtilty as she captures the essence of sport, the power of ambition, and the menacing hand of totalitarianism whether wielded by the state, society, or individuals.”
—New York Journal of Books
"In the best of cases, books are more than just entertainment. Sometimes, they play a vital role in connecting us during divided times, across generations and cultures, reminding us that as human beings, we all have the common ground of love and want and pain. Winterland is one such book—an intimate look at the Soviet Union in the 1970s, a lost mother, and a daughter’s journey to become a star Olympic gymnast, forced to choose between what’s right for her and what’s asked of her by a state that demands the impossible. Steeped in rich cultural detail and written with the confidence of someone who has spent much time in the trenches of gyms just like the ones Anya inhabits, Winterland will immerse you in rich period detail, the joy and anguish of first love, and the heartache of unimaginable loss and sacrifice. Both a searingly immersive tale and an important book for our times, Winterland is a must-read, for it will remind you that while we may live in a world divided, we are, as individuals, all similarly fragile, hopeful, and ultimately human at our core. Impeccably researched and beautifully written."
—Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Lost Names and The Forest of Vanishing Stars
"Winterland is a story as gripping as it is a powerful rendering of the true cost of perfection. In beautifully written, thrilling prose, Rae Meadows takes us deep into the world of the USSR’s gymnastics program. As we see eight-year-old Anya rise to the top of this ultra-competitive and punishing sport, the mystery of the disappearance of her mother begins to unfold. Combining a page turning plot with fully formed characters, Meadows has written a novel that reflects the current moment. I was left breathless."
—Lara Prescott, New York Times bestselling author of The Secrets We Kept
“Rae Meadows brings the gruelling world of Olympic dreams to vivid life in Winterland, a searing tale of a young girl finding her path in Soviet-era gymnastics. Anya's childhood is centered around the mysterious disappearance of her mother, an event that anchors the book in a spiral of questions. Heart-breaking and thought-provoking, imbued with the beautiful fragility and terror of athletic excellence, this is a story of unfolding friendship and adversity that will linger with readers for long afterwards.”
—Yangsze Choo, New York Times bestselling author of The Night Tiger
“Rae Meadows always writes with absolute clarity and power, and it is a pleasure to soar through the air with her in Winterland, weightless, strong, and capable of anything.”
—Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of All Adults Here
“Rae Meadows’ captivating 1970s Soviet-era tale echoes the stark landscape of its Siberian setting. A ballerina goes missing; her husband pieces his life together, as their young daughter is ushered into the grueling sport of Olympic gymnastics. Meadows testifies to the invincible human spirit.”
—The Christian Science Monitor
"Meadows paints a poignant portrait of life behind the Iron Curtain, palpably conveying her vividly rendered characters’ deprivation, longing, and self-sacrifice. Fans of Megan Abbott’s You Will Know Me should take note."
—Publisher's Weekly
"Meadows’ absorbing fifth novel follows a promising young Soviet gymnast as she enters a ruthless sports system that emphasizes winning at all costs... Writing with a confidence based on excellent research, Meadows vividly depicts the Soviet training system—and its abuses... An enlightening portrait of a now-vanished world."
—Kirkus Reviews
"Meadows skillfully articulates the risks and rewards of high-level competition, the divine feeling of being chosen to represent one's country and the fragility of the human body... Winterland is a historic look back at a generation of Soviet talent, ambition, and sacrifice, inside and outside the gym."
–Booklist, starred review
“Quoting aptly from the poems of Marina Tsvetaeva and liberally slinging Russian vulgarities along with gymnastics lingo, Meadows [...] captures the risks so recently headlined by Simone Biles and other champions in her fifth novel…Spanning the final decades of the 1900s, [Winterland] is a genre-bender that fluently integrates sports with accents from political and psychological thrillers.”
–Library Journal
"Chillingly good... The author's sensitive exploration of her story's historical context makes Winterland a sports story like none other."
–Duluth News Tribune
"The brutal landscape and the gracefully rendered, even more, brutal lives of Anya, Vera, and others make Winterland a perfect winter read."
–City Book Review
“[A] story of an era shaped by glory and loss and about forging a life when you no longer are what you were.”
–Historical Novel Society
Library Journal
09/01/2022
Quoting aptly from the poems of Marina Tsvetaeva and liberally slinging Russian vulgarities along with gymnastics lingo, Meadows (I Will Send Rain) captures the risks so recently headlined by Simone Biles and other champions in her fifth novel, which traces the tormented lives of three women against a backdrop of gymnastics in Norilsk, a closed Soviet industrial city in the Arctic. Anya, a child of faithful communist parents, endures the sport's cruel training regimen for the greater glory of the USSR. Her mother, a ballerina, unaccountably disappears from the child's life early on, yet haunts her coming of age. Their neighbor Vera, a gulag survivor struggling with her own grief and guilt, helps raise Anya. Deprivation, betrayal, and fear are inscribed on the characters' worried faces, yet when Anya performs her spectacular routines, smiles cover the hurt. Gymnastics is the fourth actor in the plot, as malign forces darken Anya's love of the sport. A haunting allusion to Stalin's real-life daughter, Svetlana, indicates the deep research supporting the novel. VERDICT Spanning the final decades of the 1900s, Meadows's latest is a genre-bender that fluently integrates sports with accents from political and psychological thrillers. Most novels about gymnastics are written for YA audiences, but this one is for seasoned readers.—Barbara Conaty
FEBRUARY 2023 - AudioFile
In 1973 Russia, the State chose talented school children to pursue careers in either ballet or gymnastics. Daphne Kouma offers a beautiful performance, meticulously detailing 8-year-old Anya's experiences. After Anya is chosen, we hear about her stresses, hopes, and dreams, as well as the damage to her body and mental state as she moves up the ranks of competitive gymnastics. Kouma recounts the intense pressure to achieve placed upon Anya and the other prepubescent girls and boys who are chosen. They starve themselves to remain small. When they’re injured, they’re taped, given injections and pills, and sent out to compete. Kouma’s credible Russian accents and outstanding character development make this a story filled with heart that listeners won’t soon forget. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2022-08-31
Meadows’ absorbing fifth novel follows a promising young Soviet gymnast as she enters a ruthless sports system that emphasizes winning at all costs.
It is 1973 in the remote Arctic mining town of Norilsk, where 8-year-old Anya lives with her father, Yuri, who's employed at the local metalworks. Katerina, Anya’s mother, disappeared three years ago, and it was speculated at the time that the former Bolshoi ballerina might have returned to Moscow or even defected. Despite the shadow cast by her mother’s disappearance and her father’s own loss of status within the Communist Party, Anya’s gymnastic potential has deemed her “an asset to the Soviet Union.” When she is selected to train with Anatoly Popov, Anya embarks on a physical and emotional journey that takes her from a run-down gym in Norilsk to the famed national gymnastics training center at Round Lake in preparation for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. In an alternating storyline, Vera, Anya’s elderly neighbor and confidante, recalls her privileged pre-revolutionary childhood and her years in a Siberian labor camp that also killed her husband and son. Writing with a confidence based on excellent research, Meadows vividly depicts the Soviet training system—and its abuses—without taxing readers with too many technical terms. Some of the era’s greatest stars (Ludmilla Tourischeva, Nellie Kim, Olga Korbut) make brief appearances, representing a competitive gymnastics that is transitioning from traditional balletic artistry to a more athletic—and riskier—style. If there's a flaw in this smoothly paced novel, it's the lack of conflict motivating its characters to action. Although well drawn, they are passive figures living in a society that allows for no individual agency. Also, the book’s final section covering the collapse of the Soviet Union feels rushed.
An enlightening portrait of a now-vanished world.
