Forty Rooms (Grushin)

Book Reviews
The structure of Olga Grushin's Forty Rooms is ingeniously simple...there is enough material to warrant hours of contemplation.... The reader's impulse to grapple with the text, to wrestle it down and to raise objections or to attempt to identify her own place in the context of the story, is a sign not of weakness, but of Grushin's genius. There is no redemption story to relax into here, and no easy answers.... This novel reminds us that to pursue her dreams, a woman is working against the establishment, not with it. To the young women into whose hands I will most certainly be putting Grushin's novel, I will say this: You can do it all, but together we can create a world in which we might be able to do more. Because if we don't keep working for greater gender equality, it's not in the best interests of the current power brokers to stop us from continuing to spend more than a fair share of our lives elbow-deep in soapsuds whether we choose to or not.
Alexandra Fuller - New York Times Book Review


[An] ingenious and original conceit.... Forty Rooms is a deft, engaging novel written with rare eloquence. But a ferociously uncompromising morality play lurks within it.
Wall Street Journal


[A] child of the Moscow intelligentsia rejects a "small life consumed by happiness" in America and a life driven by "the divine standards of art." But her path veers wildly in the New World.... At the end of life, Grushin concludes that the impossible, irresistible path of art is what’s most joyful—and memorable.
Publishers Weekly


Lacking the grandeur of her previous titles despite the masterly writing (and, at times, overwriting), this work might puzzle some of Grushin's fans but will appeal to readers interested in careful portraiture of one woman's struggles. —Edward B. Cone, New York
Library Journal


(Starred review.) The tension between art and domesticity....narrated by an unnamed heroine who can see through mundane reality...into other worlds.... [The novel poses] questions that women, especially, will recognize. Honest, tender, and exquisitely crafted. A novel to savor.
Kirkus Reviews