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Kidnapped: A Story in Crimes
From Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Russia’s greatest living absurdist and surrealistic writer and New York Times traditional family drama meet burlesque social satire, enveloped in a Bollywood soap-opera plot. Set in the 1980s and '90s, Kidnapped focuses on the life of Alina, a promising language student who must drop her academic career because of an unplanned pregnancy. Alina decides to give up a baby for adoption after birth and is set to leave the hospital alone. In the hospital she meets another girl, Masha, who is happily looking forward to the childbirth and speaks up of her life plans with the husband in a republic in South Asia. When Masha dies in childbirth, Alina impulsively exchanges the babies' name bracelets in an attempt to send her newborn son away from the dull reality of Soviet life. But then the unthinkable Masha's husband asks Alina to falsify her identity and come with him in the foreign service. Full of twists and turns, Kidnapped results in a drama worthy of a daytime soap medical deceit, identity scams, and falsified death abound. Despite it all, Alina survives against all odds in unthinkable circumstances, sure above all that she will learn to be a good mother.
268 pages, Paperback
Published April 25, 2023
8 people are currently reading
164 people want to read
About the author
Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
137 books362 followersLudmilla Stefanovna Petrushevskaya (Russian: Людмила Петрушевская) is a Russian writer, novelist and playwright.
Her works include the novels The Time Night (1992) and The Number One, both short-listed for the Russian Booker Prize, and Immortal Love, a collection of short stories and monologues. Since the late 1980s her plays, stories and novels have been published in more than 30 languages. In 2003 she was awarded the Pushkin Prize in Russian literature by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation in Germany. She was awarded the Russian State Prize for arts (2004), the Stanislavsky Award (2005), and the Triumph Prize (2006).
Her works include the novels The Time Night (1992) and The Number One, both short-listed for the Russian Booker Prize, and Immortal Love, a collection of short stories and monologues. Since the late 1980s her plays, stories and novels have been published in more than 30 languages. In 2003 she was awarded the Pushkin Prize in Russian literature by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation in Germany. She was awarded the Russian State Prize for arts (2004), the Stanislavsky Award (2005), and the Triumph Prize (2006).
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 26, 2023
4.5
In general, broad satire and, especially, comic capers don’t work for me. Yet they do in this book. I was simply swept along by Petrushevskaya’s rendering of this mad story. Perhaps it’s because I’ve already read two of her short story collections (see especially The New Adventures of Helen: Magical Tales) in which these elements are prevalent. I’d certainly been primed for all the housing issues and the lengths characters have to take in order to keep their living spaces out of the clutches of usurpers. This novel takes that theme even further, skewering a society in which you need to commit “crimes” in order to simply survive. Even if you’ve been living off the grid, committing “crimes” will become necessary when you’re discovered and inevitably taken advantage of: it's either that, or perish. The characters don't chuckle at their situations (okay, the “twin” boys do), but the reader does, at least at some of them. It’s all due to the way the story is told, because what happens, especially to women, is brutal.
In general, broad satire and, especially, comic capers don’t work for me. Yet they do in this book. I was simply swept along by Petrushevskaya’s rendering of this mad story. Perhaps it’s because I’ve already read two of her short story collections (see especially The New Adventures of Helen: Magical Tales) in which these elements are prevalent. I’d certainly been primed for all the housing issues and the lengths characters have to take in order to keep their living spaces out of the clutches of usurpers. This novel takes that theme even further, skewering a society in which you need to commit “crimes” in order to simply survive. Even if you’ve been living off the grid, committing “crimes” will become necessary when you’re discovered and inevitably taken advantage of: it's either that, or perish. The characters don't chuckle at their situations (okay, the “twin” boys do), but the reader does, at least at some of them. It’s all due to the way the story is told, because what happens, especially to women, is brutal.
June 22, 2023
There's a new Russian in town! Ludmilla Petrushevskaya has written a highly entertaining and amusing read! #Petrushevskaya23 #Kidnapped
December 30, 2024
i read this book, that’s for sure. terribly convoluted with lacking explanations. the author just like starts random stories and is like “this is the mom, you know, the mom” and i’m sitting there like “there are 4 moms from various time periods, help me.” the writing was so conversational that it felt like your coworker is telling another coworker a story, but you’re not involved so you’re trying to piece it together while doing your job and eavesdropping. i’ve read and watched crime anthologies that were PHENOMENAL, and this just didn’t click for me. maybe it’s the translation, maybe there was some sort of social barrier, but i didn’t particularly enjoy it. also, there were quite a few racist and sexist little bits that felt like they were supposed to be satirical, but it certainly did not read like it. hnghhhhhhhhh. also the crime in and of itself wasn’t written as big as it could’ve been, i thought.
July 19, 2023
A story that is dark, funny and a satire of life in the USSR. I'm amazed at the structure of this book. The story leaps from one character/set of characters to another all the while maintaining a logical connection. I wanted to make a family tree of the characters to understand who is who. Petrushevskaya is a genre by herself. I've never read anything like this before.
Many thanks to Reem and Yelena for choosing this book for the #BookTwitter read. I don't think I would have otherwise been able to find it.
Many thanks to Reem and Yelena for choosing this book for the #BookTwitter read. I don't think I would have otherwise been able to find it.
June 13, 2025
Convoluted, but that's the point. Russian life is corrupt and convoluted. The moments of hilarity here are well-rendered and there's never a dull moment. There's a fine line between an overpopulated story (i.e. War and Peace) where you have to keep checking Wikipedia just to keep all the characters straight and an expertly-rendered madcap romp with sharp Soviet-era satire, which this is. I deducted a star only because it goes on a tad too long. She was more suited to the short story form but there's no question she had an absolute blast writing this.
May 31, 2023
I'm a big fan of There Once Lived.. books which are quite off-the-wall and show Petrushevskaya's talent as an author of absurd and fantastical fiction with a good degree of hunour, in the mold of Leonora Carrington, or Angela Carter in her dark moods.
This though, is much more sober, and often times veers towards dull. It has its moments, but it is not the author at her best.
This though, is much more sober, and often times veers towards dull. It has its moments, but it is not the author at her best.
August 21, 2024
A convoluted crime caper and dark comedy of errors:
Two Russian boys, not-quite-twins but they share a name and birthday, arrive in “Montegasco”, somewhere in Europe, to meet their father. Only, he doesn’t know that he has “twins”—in fact, he’s completely sure he has one son, and he suspects a woman named Alina of foul play.
Because Alina is the woman who was lying in the same ward when his wife was in labour too, both of them giving birth to sons that day. His wife, Masha, died in childbirth, Alina did not; so he came to an arrangement with her regarding his son, before he disappeared—eventually to Montegasco.
That’s the basic plot, but you’ll find there are a million twists and turns in the tale, worthy of the best Russian absurdism. The main character in these stories is always the invisible State, all-powerful, ridiculous, impossible to make sense of, and pushing its citizens to ludicrous extremes—from Sergei, the boys’ father, to the corrupt doctor who cares for the two women who give birth to his sons, and the hapless Alina, a university student whose only crime was to fall in love with a bad guy. This is a fun (and funny) story about how a chaotic and unhinged state gives rise to chaotic and unhinged lives: those caught up in the madness and just trying to make do, like Alina and a very memorable hospital orderly, and those with who profit from it, like Sergei and the doctor,
If you can hold onto the threads of all of the different characters the author introduces, you’ll enjoy this wild ride. Thanks to Deep Vellum and Edelweiss for DRC access.
Two Russian boys, not-quite-twins but they share a name and birthday, arrive in “Montegasco”, somewhere in Europe, to meet their father. Only, he doesn’t know that he has “twins”—in fact, he’s completely sure he has one son, and he suspects a woman named Alina of foul play.
Because Alina is the woman who was lying in the same ward when his wife was in labour too, both of them giving birth to sons that day. His wife, Masha, died in childbirth, Alina did not; so he came to an arrangement with her regarding his son, before he disappeared—eventually to Montegasco.
That’s the basic plot, but you’ll find there are a million twists and turns in the tale, worthy of the best Russian absurdism. The main character in these stories is always the invisible State, all-powerful, ridiculous, impossible to make sense of, and pushing its citizens to ludicrous extremes—from Sergei, the boys’ father, to the corrupt doctor who cares for the two women who give birth to his sons, and the hapless Alina, a university student whose only crime was to fall in love with a bad guy. This is a fun (and funny) story about how a chaotic and unhinged state gives rise to chaotic and unhinged lives: those caught up in the madness and just trying to make do, like Alina and a very memorable hospital orderly, and those with who profit from it, like Sergei and the doctor,
If you can hold onto the threads of all of the different characters the author introduces, you’ll enjoy this wild ride. Thanks to Deep Vellum and Edelweiss for DRC access.
November 25, 2025
piping hot tea that the fiction writers of r/amitheasshole can only dream of creating
like when that one friend hits you with some drama and poorly tries to hide the names of people involved: mildly confusing, smidge of aint no way, entertaining regardless
ending generationally rushed
like when that one friend hits you with some drama and poorly tries to hide the names of people involved: mildly confusing, smidge of aint no way, entertaining regardless
ending generationally rushed
January 28, 2024
Never read anything like it. Interesting setting of environment through character development. Will try some more of her books.
January 22, 2026
Hard to follow at first, but once you get into it the story gets pretty crazy and everything seems to be intertwined somehow, so I found it overall enjoyable.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews