Melissa’s Review: There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In – Three Novellas About Family
written by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
published by Penguin Books

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, iBooks, Goodreads

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange  for an honest review.

Did I enjoy this book: I loved it. It was dark, sad, and impeccably written — all of my favorite things. I’m not at all proud to belong to a race capable of inspiring such dreary depictions of human nature, but Ms. Petrushevskaya’s writing reminds me that we can be beautiful as well.

 

Golden Line: “What have I done except love them both?”

 

Would I recommend it: Absolutely. Twice.

About the book – from Goodreads: The masterly novellas that established Ludmilla Petrushevskaya as one of the greatest living Russian writers.

“Love them,­ they’ll torture you; don’t love them, ­they’ll leave you anyway.”

After her work was suppressed for many years, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya won wide recognition for capturing the experiences of everyday Russians with profound pathos and mordant wit. Among her most famous and controversial works, these three novellas—The Time Is Night, Chocolates with Liqueur, and Among Friends—are modern classics that breathe new life into Tolstoy’s famous dictum, “All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Together they confirm the genius of an author with a gift for turning adversity into art