One Night in Winter, by Simon Sebag Montefiore – review

Simon Sebag Montefiore’s One Night in Winter begins in the hours immediately following the solemn victory parade that marked the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany — probably the high point of Stalinism. Two teenagers, dressed in 19th- century costume and members of a secret literary club called, aptly as it turns out, the Fatal Romantics, have chosen this moment, of all moments, to re-enact a duel from Pushkin’s Onegin on a bridge beneath the very walls of the Kremlin.

Needless to say, when the duel goes fatally wrong and the dead boy and girl are revealed to be the offspring of members of the Soviet leader’s inner circle, we know there will be consequences for the families and friends they’ve left behind. At this point, it seems inevitable that Sebag Montefiore’s new novel will turn into the fictional flipside of his masterful Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. However, strange as it may seem, One Night in Winter isn’t about the remorseless destruction of innocents caught up in events beyond their control — or, rather, it is, but it isn’t only about that. Surprisingly, it’s a novel that’s mostly about love.

Everyone in the book is in love. Some of the characters love Stalin — an unappreciative recipient, it has to be said (things don’t tend to work out well for the Stalin-lovers). Some love people they shouldn’t — and things don’t really go very well for them either, although they relish their illicit romances while they can. Some love spouses and children and parents and siblings, and do all in their power to protect them, albeit with patchy success. The state security investigation into the teenagers’ deaths, which swiftly extends to the remaining Fatal Romantics and soon embroils families, teachers and passing acquaintances, is predictably terrifying — but the novel’s romantic soul tempers the terror and makes for a gripping read.