Anna Horsbrugh-Porter

. . .[These] letters, now collected together in a touching book called From Newbury With Love: Letters of Friendship Across the Iron Curtain (Melville House; $20) document a relationship that is both very ordinary and yet very remarkable. Ordinary, because there really is nothing special about an aging bookseller or a little Russian girl still young enough to dream of becoming a ballerina. And yet remarkable, because they forged a friendship in defiance of all the forces arrayed against them; the implacable paranoia of their two countries at the height of the Cold War, the thousands of un-crossable miles between them, the wide no-man’s land of the Iron Curtain, the constant harassment and surveillance of the authorities, the unbridgeable number of years between them, the fact that Harold spoke no Russian and Marina only very uncertain English—all of these seemingly insurmountable obstacles conquered by one simple act—the willingness to write a letter. . .read full review… (more)