Invitation to a Bonfire
Opening with a hint of mystery, this literary novel unfolds through letters, detailed diary entries, and other documents that provide the backstory and emotional terrain of its unusual love triangle. The central characters are Russian émigrés: Zoya, a war orphan of impoverished rural origins, whose diary is juxtaposed with complex and revealing letters from the brilliant writer Lev Orloff to his wife, Vera, both of whom grew up in wealthy circles.
During the first half of the story, the link between Zoya and the Orloffs remains unclear and tangential. But when Lev accepts a teaching position at the elite New Jersey girls’ school she once attended on a scholarship and where she now works as a gardener, Zoya plunges into a passionate, reckless affair with her idol. He asks her to do a shocking favor, and the besotted, gullible young woman assents despite her uneasiness. Vera looms as a presence mostly in the background until Zoya’s face-to-face encounter with her. From that point on, the tension accelerates, and the plot rapidly turns an unexpected direction.
Vivid descriptions of Zoya’s years of humiliation by snobbish girls from rich families, together with traumatic half-suppressed memories of her childhood in war-torn Russia convey her vulnerability and inner turmoil. A similar level of artful character development makes Lev and Vera intriguing as well. At first the story moves rather slowly, and the plot seems tenuous. However, it achieves the intensity of a thriller near its conclusion. Something Lev often tells Zoya while wooing her, and which she internalizes, takes on a new dimension in the dramatic surprise ending.
