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The Secrets We Kept: A novel Hardcover – September 3, 2019
by Lara Prescott (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars 4,085 ratings
3.7 on Goodreads
64,044 ratings
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A HELLO SUNSHINE x REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK
A thrilling tale of secretaries turned spies, of love and duty, and of sacrifice--inspired by the true story of the CIA plot to infiltrate the hearts and minds of Soviet Russia, not with propaganda, but with the greatest love story of the twentieth century: Doctor Zhivago.
At the height of the Cold War, two secretaries are pulled out of the typing pool at the CIA and given the assignment of a lifetime. Their mission: to smuggle Doctor Zhivago out of the USSR, where no one dare publish it, and help Pasternak's magnum opus make its way into print around the world. Glamorous and sophisticated Sally Forrester is a seasoned spy who has honed her gift for deceit all over the world--using her magnetism and charm to pry secrets out of powerful men. Irina is a complete novice, and under Sally's tutelage quickly learns how to blend in, make drops, and invisibly ferry classified documents.
The Secrets We Kept combines a legendary literary love story--the decades-long affair between Pasternak and his mistress and muse, Olga Ivinskaya, who was sent to the Gulag and inspired Zhivago's heroine, Lara--with a narrative about two women empowered to lead lives of extraordinary intrigue and risk. From Pasternak's country estate outside Moscow to the brutalities of the Gulag, from Washington, D.C. to Paris and Milan, The Secrets We Kept captures a watershed moment in the history of literature--told with soaring emotional intensity and captivating historical detail. And at the center of this unforgettable debut is the powerful belief that a piece of art can change the world.
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Print length
368 pages
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of September 2019: There are a few love stories in The Secrets We Kept, mostly of the unhappy kind: adulterous, unrequited, forbidden, and ill-fated. And in between these thwarted romances, history happens. In Russia, a mistress suffers years in a Gulag rather than betray her married lover—Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago—to Stalin. Her suffering inspires Pasternak to create Lara, a literary heroine for the ages. A few years later, in mid-1950s Washington DC, two intriguing, courageous women work as spies for the CIA while masquerading as typing pool secretaries. It’s a long way from the Gulag to the Beltway, but Prescott cleverly links these two narratives via the progress of the Doctor Zhivago manuscript, whose besieged creator half-pleads, half-prays, “May it make its way around the world.” That this contraband masterpiece did make its way around the world while Russians were forbidden to read it, and that the CIA hatched an audacious plot to smuggle it into Soviet Russia so as to turn its citizens against communism, is credited to men with famous surnames: Pasternak, Stalin, Dulles, and even publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. But Prescott’s mesmerizing novel brings women out of the shadows and gives them their due, as spies and muses yes, but also as unsung heroines who put their lives on the line to get a novel out into the world, trusting that to do so would rouse a nation and change the course of history. --Vannessa Cronin
Review
"A gorgeous and romantic feast of a novel anchored by a cast of indelible secretaries."
—The New York Times
"Enthralling... This is the rare page-turner with prose that's as wily as its plot."
—Vogue
"Proto-feminist Mad Men transposed to the world of international espionage—all midcentury style and intrigue set against real, indelible history.”
—Entertainment Weekly
"Prescott clearly had fun crafting this story, and the result is a novel that’s a delight to read — and a secret worth sharing."
—San Francisco Chronicle
"The Secrets We Kept is simply sensational. Two gripping narratives unfold in the pressure cooker of the Cold War: passionate, courageous Olga who stands in the shadow of Soviet author Boris Pasternak yet inspires him to write a heroine for the ages, and the cynical, equally-overshadowed women of the CIA who help bring Pasternak's masterpiece Dr. Zhivago to bear as a weapon against Soviet oppression. From the gulags of the USSR to the cherry blossom trees of Washington DC, the story grips and refuses to let go. Lara Prescott is a star in the making."
—Kate Quinn, New York Times Bestselling author of The Huntress and The Alice Network
"Prescott crafts a cloak-and-dagger story of passion, espionage, and propaganda."
—The Wall Street Journal
"A page-turner that is at once a spy thriller, historical fiction and heartfelt romance...A thumping good story."
—The Columbus Dispatch
"Through lucid images and vibrant storytelling, Prescott creates an edgy postfeminist vision of the Cold War, encompassing Sputnik to glasnost, typing pool to gulag, for a smart, lively page-turner. This debut shines as spy story, publication thriller, and historical romance with a twist."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A whirlwind of storytelling. In Prescott’s supremely talented hands, the result is no less than endlessly fascinating, often deliciously fun as well as heartbreaking.
The Secrets We Kept is a dazzling, beguiling debut."
—BookPage (starred review)
"Delightful... An intriguing and little-known chapter of literary history is brought to life with brio."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Epic in scope, deliciously meaty, and utterly convincing.”
—Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
“Stylish, thrilling, smart, vivid.”
—Elizabeth McCracken, author of Thunderstruck & Other Stories
“Provocative, haunting and a damn good read.”
—H.W. Brands, author of The First American
“A first-rate novel, and it signals the arrival of a major new writer.”
—Bret Anthony Johnston, author of Remember Me Like This
“One of the most unique and devastating novels [I have] read in years.”
—Deb Olin Unferth, author of Minor Robberies
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Product details
Publisher : Knopf; First Edition (September 3, 2019)
Language : English
Hardcover : 368 pages
ISBN-10 : 0525656154
ISBN-13 : 978-0525656159
Item Weight : 1.53 pounds
Dimensions : 6.42 x 1.34 x 9.55 inchesBest Sellers Rank: #86,418 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)#254 in Political Fiction (Books)
#1,272 in Espionage Thrillers (Books)
#6,647 in Literary Fiction (Books)Customer Reviews:
4.2 out of 5 stars 4,085 ratings
Lara Prescott
Lara Prescott is the author of The Secrets We Kept, an instant New York Times bestseller and a Hello Sunshine x Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick. The Secrets We Kept was an Edgar Award nominee for Best First Fiction, winner of the 2020 Macavity Award for Best Historical Mystery, and winner of 2019 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award in Fiction. The Secrets We Kept is Lara’s debut novel and will be translated into over 30 languages and adapted for television by The Ink Factory and Marc Platt Productions.
Lara received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. She studied political science at American University in Washington, D.C. and international development in Namibia and South Africa. Prior to writing fiction, Lara worked as a political campaign consultant.
Lara lives in Portsmouth, NH. Learn more at LaraPrescott.com.
Top reviews from the United States
vandyman99
5.0 out of 5 stars Russia's House of Cads or Typing for Fun and ProfitReviewed in the United States on July 25, 2022
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Somewhere, my love, is a literary and political thriller more compelling than The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott, but I haven’t seen a competitor in a long, long time. The plot revolves around efforts in the 1950s by the CIA to smuggle Boris Pasternak’s novel, Dr. Zhivago, into Russia, where the agency hoped its central theme of individualism and the desire for freedom from oppression, government interference, etc. would inspire transformational change in the hearts and minds of everyday Russian citizens. Or something like that. We still live in hope.
There is some evidence that the CIA covert actions behind the dissemination of the novel were, in fact, true. Having read many years ago Bob Woodward’s book, Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, not much about the CIA actions during William Casey’s tenure (and that of Bill “Wild Bill” Donovan and others before him) surprises me. I distinctly remember events like the illegal mining of harbors in Nicaragua while Reagan nodded off in staff meetings. But I digress….
The construction of the novel is like a medieval passion play, with vignette after vignette passing before you, all contributing to the plot and pacing, and all from multiple perspectives. (Sometimes this was a little confusing as you ciphered out sudden shifts in voice.) There are even multiple scenes from the viewpoint of the CIA Typing Pool, whose members were clacking away in the postwar years on top-secret minutes and reports. Not to give too much away, but one of the CIA Directors raped a typist in one scene, egregious enough, even in fiction. (The CIA sponsorship of the overthrow of the government of Chile and the related death of Allende, was, alas, all too true. Happily, the buzzer sounded on most of this cowboy stuff with the Iran Contra hearings….)
The novel includes scenes of the private lives of Pasternak and his family, featuring prominently his muse and mistress, Olga Ivinskaya, in so far as these scenes related to the ultimate theme of publishing Dr. Zhivago. A leitmotif of the novel was the effort to get the novel published in Russia against a backdrop of fusty, often invisible, impenetrable government censors and bureaucrats. The gulag and exile were very much real and imagined presences. The novel was actually published first in Italy, after being smuggled out of Russia in manuscript form with the complicity of Pasternak himself. Fortunately for the world of letters, the Italian publisher recognized its value to the world of ideas, validated by the eventual awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Pasternak. (Not to complicate the story any more than is necessary, but he originally refused the prize, bowing to Communist Party pressure and threats against the artist and his family and associates.)
If you like literature and stories of bringing a work to publication, this is the best tale since Guttenberg. Entertainment Weekly said, “Prescott combines Mad Men-esque period style with a spy story worthy of John le Carre.” Publisher’s Weekly wrote, “Through lucid images and vibrant storytelling, Prescott creates an edgy postfeminist vision of the Cold War, encompassing Sputnik to glasnost, typing pool to Gulag, for a smart, lively page-turner. This debut shines as spy story, publication thriller, and historical romance with a twist.”
This novel was indeed Precott’s first book. The author, 37 when the novel was published in 2019, spent much of her pre-writing career working on Democratic political campaigns, assisting with the campaigns of Rahm Emanuel in Chicago and Jerry Brown in California and others, helping with speechwriting and position papers, etc. (She has a Master’s degree in Political Science from American University). But ultimately the urge to write led her to drop these endeavors to enroll in the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, where, in the course of her studies there, conceived the nuclear idea for this novel. I found two things about this period of particular interest. First, she was rejected the first time she applied for graduate admission to the University of Texas but re-applied successfully a year later. And early on in the writing of the book, a high- profile literary agent told her, “No one is interested in Russia anymore.” She ultimately sold the book for $2 million, and it has been optioned for a movie. I guess the agent was wrong.
She’s now exploring a new novel related to the Depression-era Federal Writer’s Project. The New York Times said Prescott is also “fascinated by the world of fake news—who writes it, and why and how it spreads. She’d love to chronicle her dream candidate Elizabeth Warren on the campaign trail…” (Read Warren’s book, A Fighting Chance, as I did and you’ll see why.)
Read The Secrets We Kept at least once. You’ll be glad you did.
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Constant Reader
4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, Not Quite Great, But Worth ReadingReviewed in the United States on October 5, 2019
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Words are powerful. This novel tells an interwoven story of Boris Pasternak, his mistress, his novel Dr. Zhivago, and the intelligence services of the United States. The story shifts in time between Russia at the time when Pasternak is writing Dr. Zhivago and a bit later to after the novel has been written. It also shifts between characters from the Russian cast and the predominately American characters. The reader’s view of the intelligence services is primarily through the eyes of the women who were largely confined to the typing pool. It is obvious that a lot of talent (including seasoned talent with significant war-time OSS experience) is being wasted on the sidelines. Pasternak was not given permission to publish his novel in Russian since it deem to have anti-Soviet views. That ban made the novel attractive to the American intelligence service as a potential asset/weapon in the Cold War. That ban may have also influenced the Noble Prize committee to award its literary prize to Pasternak for his body of work including his poems and this novel. The story is as fascinating as it was unknown to me. Visions of Omar Shariff, Julie Christie, and ice from the movie version of Dr. Zhivago were ever present in my thoughts as I read. (That’s a good thing!) There are subplots in both the Russian portion and the American that are not closely related to Dr. Zhivago. The subplots serve to flesh out the novel and to give more dimension to the secret world of spies in the Cold War era and the oppressive police state of Pasternak. I recently read the Noise of Time by Julien Barnes about Russia’s treatment of Shostakovich during the Stalin era. This is a nation that takes its art and artists very seriously, and, in an oppressive society, that is not a good thing for artists. Toxic. The two books are vastly different, but consistent in their portrayal of the political atmosphere and the burdens placed on the artists to denounce each other upon request. Unlike The Noise of Time, this is not a literary novel. It is historical fiction that sometimes feels contrived. I did appreciate some of the historical details, like the reactions to the launch of Sputnik. The characters are often flat which leaves the reader less connected to the dramatic story. Things that should have touched my heart, often did not. There are lots of secrets kept by the characters, and there are secrets betrayed. Ultimately secrets are isolating and they make you vulnerable to betrayal no matter how close you might hold them. It may not be a novel that is written well enough to lead to a Nobel Prize for its author, but it was written well enough to hold my interest and keep the pages turning quickly.
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Lynda Roades
3.0 out of 5 stars A Love StoryReviewed in the United States on June 29, 2022
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For a debut novel, Prescott did not shy away from multiple points of view, a fictional accounting of a time and place many readers personally experienced (hands up to those who can still hum the opening bars of “Lara’s Theme!). Plus, the 50’s and early 60’s are tough to write about — there was a lot going on and most of it was well under the surface.
Prescott has a way with words—She very much captured the typing pool, the details of surviving in a humid city (stuffing a paper towel in your girdle, I could see my mother-in-law doing just that.) Her description of the gulag where the cold was penetrating a woman’s little toe snapped off made me shiver.
Still-as much as I enjoyed bits and pieces of the book, I wasn’t sure what the story was about. It wasn’t about sacrifice and subterfuge in writing and publishing “Dr. Zhivago”. It wasn’t really about how women were relegated to traditional roles (typing pool) after mastering the skills of espionage and resistance. It touched upon the fear and paranoia of the Cold War on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
What was the story, then? It’s a love story, a story of the depth and persistence of working through a forbidden love. Olga’s love for Pasternak — where sharing him with his wife, his work, and the world was worth the price of re-education in the gulag, risking her children’s future, and more. With Irina, her counterpoint was the strength of her love for another woman.
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Loreen
5.0 out of 5 stars Great StoryReviewed in Canada on November 4, 2019
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This was a different perspective on the old story: Doctor Zhivago. It traces, the writer and his mistress as well as the beginnings of the CIA and their involvement with getting Zhivago published around the world and in the USSR. Soviet doctrine at the time was severe and did not support his kind of story. At first, the perspectives from different groups and people is hard to follow, but eventually, you really start to identify with the characters. This book also delves into LGBTQ issues during the late 50s.
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating readReviewed in Canada on September 7, 2020
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I enjoyed this book very much. I didn't expect to because I'm not a big fan of Russian literature, but I am a fan of books about the cold war in general. I bought it because of the good reviews and I'm glad I did. There is such a diverse cast of characters, all of whom were well written and interesting. The book moves along at a good pace and there were several times I was compelled to keep reading, even though my eyes were tired.
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J. v. Kirchbach
3.0 out of 5 stars Sadly below expectations ...Reviewed in Germany on October 20, 2019
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The premise of the plot of "The Secrets We Kept" was intriguing, but the writing and structure never delivered the punch I anticipated. Honestly, the characters (and there are many!) were never developed or nuanced to a degree that made me care what happened to them, one way or the other. The chapters seemed choppy and the beginning of each one was spent figuring out who the narrator was. The Cold War atmosphere was well portrayed. The back story to Doctor Zhivago was very interesting, but the style in which it was presented was hard to read. This will not be a book I recommend to people who are interested in literature or the Cold War or a compelling narrative.
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turtle65
3.0 out of 5 stars Story within a story within a story - I found this book confusing with flipping back and forth tinReviewed in Canada on January 17, 2020
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In its characters and settings. The ending tied a small portion of the book together, leaving many characters and situations lost in the past possibly hanging somewhere waiting to be free....persistence will get you to the end
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Sarah Bello
5.0 out of 5 stars Historia y FicciónReviewed in Mexico on November 4, 2020
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Me gusto la mezcla de lo histórico con la ficción, así como también, lo bien que están caracterizados los personajes y la forma en que suceden los hechos en el presente y el pasado.
