Jacob's Ladder

"Nora Ossetsky, a set designer in 1970s Moscow, discovers a willow chest filled with her paternal grandparents’ correspondence after her Grandmother Marusya’s death. Thus begins acclaimed Russian writer Ulitskaya’s expansive novel about the complications of human lives and repeating generational patterns, set against a backdrop that skips across a century of tumultuous Russian and Soviet history . . . Ideal for devotees of Russian literature and epic tales."—Booklist

"Ulitskaya travels through a century of tangled Russian family history in this lucid saga . . . there is something mesmerizing about the narrative’s scale, and patterns emerge: the little control humans have over their lives; the impact of political forces on individuals; the certainty of death, somehow softened by the promise of new birth. This is a challenging yet rewarding epic."—Publishers Weekly