City of Thieves

Benioff, David. City of Thieves. Read by Ron Perlman. New York: Penguin Audio, 2009

Leningrad, 1942. Lev Beniof is arrested for being out after curfew and caught in the act of robbing the dead body of a German paratrooper. The penalty for such crimes is death. Awaiting his fate Lev meets fellow prisoner and alleged Red Army deserter, Kolya Vlasov. Lev and Kolya couldn’t be more mismatched. Lev is a quiet and unassuming insomniac Russian Jew, only 17 and still an insecure, awkward virgin. Kolya a 20 year old smooth (never shuts up) talker, exceedingly well read and charming. Instead of being executed as expected together they are tasked with finding a dozen eggs for Colonel Grechko’s daughter’s wedding cake. Finding these eggs in starved Leningrad is absurd but it is also a matter of life and death.
The horrors or war and the harsh realities of deprivation are an interesting juxtaposition against the sometimes comical relationship of Lev and Kolya. Their growing friendship reminds me of Gene and Phineas from John Knowles’s A Separate Peace. While the two endure the bitter cold, starvation and the threat of the German enemy their journey is tempered with Kolya’s humorous blatherings about jokes, literature and sex. The ending is predictable but stays with you long after you close the book.

Reason read: January was Russia’s coldest month on record. Read in honor of that.

Author fact: According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia Benioff took his mother’s maiden name but was born Friedman.

Book trivia: There is a rumor floating around that this will be made into a movie.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Saint Petersburg/Leningrad/Saint Petersburg” (p 195). Interestingly enough, plays up the “historical fiction” hype. In the first chapter of City of Thieves Benioff insinuates the story is about his grandfather and that when his grandfather refused to be specific about some details he was told to “make it up.” None of that is true. It just makes for a more interesting story to think that it *could* have happened that way.