TO THE MIDNIGHT SUN

Saletan blends memoir and history in this debut nonfiction work.

“My Russian grandmother was a revolutionary,” the author declares in the book’s opening chapter. Though she had lived in the United States for decades and spoke pristine English, Eda Grigorievna Bamuner remained Saletan’s “Russian grandmother.” Contrasted with the author’s monotonous, Cold War–era Long Island suburban upbringing, Bamuner’s personal history as a revolutionary in tsarist Russia was rife with political drama and international intrigue (her incredible story includes escaping political exile and a love affair with a hero of the Russian Revolution). Intimately tied to her motherland, Bamuner made multiple trips back to Soviet Russia between the 1920s and 1960s. A medical doctor by trade (who returned to college to study Russian), Saletan has a firm command of both U.S. and Soviet history. The well-crafted narrative blends the author’s personal memoir with a more expansive family history; the story is supplemented by interviews with the author’s Russian family and archival research conducted by Saletan himself in Russian libraries following the fall of the Soviet Union. One of the book’s strengths is its juxtaposition of life in America with life in the Soviet Union; the author recalls accompanying his grandmother on a visit to a relative in Leningrad, a “crumbling but still darkly imposing city,” at the height of the Cold War. While the author’s story is fascinating—especially his experiences with the newly opened Russian archives during the nation’s brief interlude of openness prior to the surge of authoritarianism in the 2000s—what makes this book truly stand out is Saletan’s contextualization of family history within 20th-century world events. The work not only tells the dramatic story of his grandmother, but also offers astute commentary on the nature of historical research, memory, and the power of identity. The engaging text is accompanied by family photos and English translations of primary sources that complement the book’s absorbing narrative.

A powerful reflection on identity, family, and history.