Member Review
Review by
Anne O, Reviewer
I haven’t read any of Vesna Goldsworthy’s other books but I did really enjoy a radio adaptation of Gorsky. Perhaps if I had actually read it I’d have realised it’s an update of The Great Gatsby (that’s another one for the TBR pile, then). Iron Curtain, in its turn, echoes Medea. Yes, it’s a love story as the subtitle tells us, but it’s also a window into life in a communist country in the early 1980s, albeit through the eyes of the privileged few. It helps that the country isn’t specified: it stopped me looking up its history or at maps so I got on with reading the story. More than once I looked up to find over an hour had passed while I was engrossed. The part set in seedy, grimy London reminded me of Eimear McBride’s The Lesser Bohemians; love, it seems, makes a grotty flat bearable. You can tell that Goldsworthy has experienced both places for real: the detail is too good, rings too true to be anything other than believable. I think it was Milena’s narration in and of itself that really caught me though, neither too simple nor too all-knowing. I think these characters will stay with me for some time.
*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.