Invented Lives

by Andrea Goldsmith

It is the mid-1980s. In Australia, stay-at-home wives jostle with want-it-all feminists, while AIDS threatens everyone's sexual freedom. On the other side of the world, the Soviet bloc is in turmoil.

Mikhail Gorbachev has been in power for a year when twenty-four-year-old book illustrator Galina Kogan leaves Leningrad―forbidden ever to return. As a Jew, she’s inherited several generations worth of Russia’s chronic anti-Semitism. As a Soviet citizen, she is unprepared for Australia and its easy-going ways.

Once settled in Melbourne, Galina is befriended by Sylvie and Leonard Morrow, and their adult son, Andrew. The Morrow marriage of thirty years balances on secrets. Leonard is a man with conflicted desires and passions, while Sylvie chafes against the confines of domestic life. Their son, Andrew, a successful mosaicist, is a deeply shy man. He is content with his life and work―until he finds himself increasingly drawn to Galina.

While Galina grapples with the tumultuous demands that come with being an immigrant in Australia, her presence disrupts the lives of each of the Morrows. No one is left unchanged.

Invented Lives tells a story of exile: exile from country, exile at home, and exile from one’s true self.

It is also a story about love.

Genres: Australia, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, 21st Century, LGBT

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2019

About the author

Andrea Goldsmith is an Australian novelist. She started learning the piano as a young child, and music remains an abiding passion. She initially trained as a speech pathologist and worked for several years with children suffering from severe communication impairment until becoming a full-time writer in the late 1980s. During the 1990s she taught creative writing at Deakin University, and she continues to conduct workshops and mentor new novelists.

Reviews

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love it so much when I discover a new (to me) author, and then find out there's a decent back catalogue to catch up on! I can't recall how I heard about this book - maybe on a podcast - and then when I spotted a copy in a charity shop, thankfully it rang a bell and I had the good sense to pick it up and buy it, because reading this book was a joy for me from start to finish.

Galina Kogan is a mid-20s Soviet Jew living in Leningrad at the start of the Gorbachev era. On the day this story begins, she has a chance encounter with Andrew, a young Australian artist/academic who is in the city for a few months to observe the restoration of the Church on the Spilled Blood (honestly, do yourself a favour and Google it). She accepts his card, they go their separate ways, and she thinks nothing more of it, because she has a lot going on in her life at that time. Although it's not playing out the way she had always expected, she's about to take advantage of the loosening of restrictions and leave the USSR and its anti-Semitism. Forever. Because once that train is in motion, there's no stopping it, and no going back. Ever. The way it generally works is that the application to emigrate is understood to be a one-way trip from the USSR to Israel, but once the person is over the border, they can essentially go anywhere with the help of Jewish agencies abroad.

Soon the time comes for Galina to leave. She'd always expected to end up in the USA, but with her circumstances having changed dramatically, there was nothing to be gained from following that plan, and nothing to lose by choosing somewhere else. Almost on a whim, she chooses Australia; Melbourne, where Andrew lives. A year passes. Galina isn't exactly settled but she has certainly established herself in her new Australian life when she decides to make contact with Andrew. Soon she is introduced to his parents and enveloped in his small family, and this is where the story really takes off.

Each of these major characters has secrets - things they've done (or not), things they've desired, or things they are. Galina is welcomed and loved, but her arrival into the Morrow family orbit changes everyone, as they try to either conceal their secrets or resolve to live more authentic lives.

Every time I picked up this book I felt a little thrill to be able to go back to the mid-late 80s and find out what was happening. Goldsmith paints such a vivid picture of life at that time, throwing in little cultural and historic references to stamp her authority on both the locations and the era. I found it totally immersive, and even learned a few new things about my own city. I'd read about the exile of Soviet Jews before, but Galina's experience gave me more insight to both the process and the aftermath, if I can put it that way.

This book was such an unexpected joy, I'll recommend it to everyone!

[☮Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was very, very good, once I got into the flow of it. The story starts out in Leningrad where resident Galina meets visiting Australian artist Andrew and they strike up a conversation. Andrew gives her his card and a while later when Galina is deciding she has to leave Gorbachev's Russia, of all the places she thinks she might want to exile to, she picks Melbourne solely because that is where that nice young man lived. It takes them another while to finally get together, but Galina comes to enjoy her adventures with Andrew while he quickly falls in love with her, as do his parents. Their story does not progress quickly at all but is an interesting one nonetheless. I enjoyed reading about his art, mosaics, and her many talents as a budding illustrator. Much is made of the contrasts between Leningrad and Melbourne, one being that Galina is trying to be a modern woman in a new country but her traditions and mores keep coming back to haunt her.

A good portion of the book is spent on Andrew's parents, their relationship, their midlife crises, and their extra-curricular activities. I loved the mother, a housewife with many regrets about not having a career; and her hobby of collecting old letters was fascinating. Even in their chapters, Galina is ever present and having an effect on their lives.

It is one of those endings where you have to imagine how a couple of things will turn out. I am OK with that. Many thanks to Scribe Publishing and LibraryThings.com for my advanced copy.

[Caren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I simply did not want this novel to end! Goldsmith's keen eye for detail shone through her portraits of landscape, physical and cultural, her superb characterisation, and her fluent, enriched prose. Especially skilful were her re-creations of the decades of 20th century Russia, a history seen through the family of the novel's main character, Galina, as well as 1988 Melbourne, as perceived again through Galina and her experiences as a migrant.

Equally engaging were the characters whose lives are linked with Galina's as she becomes immersed in Australia: her dear friend, Andrew, and his parents, Sylvie and Leonard. Even Galina's late mother, through her daughter's memories of her, plays a significant role in Galina's present. What readers come to realise is that all of us are "exiled" from the selves and lives we perhaps had imagined for ourselves. In some way, each of these characters, native to Australia or not, reinvents himself/herself as "a juggling act between past and present, remembering and forgetting." The secrets, often deceptions, that linger within each of them, enlarges the meaning of "exile" to include the psychological and emotional distances we often put between our dreams and our realities.

Having moved from America in my late twenties and, subsequently, adjusted to life in two other countries and cultures, I found much of my own experience reflected in Goldsmith's exploration. At its core, the novel reveals the strength needed to come to terms with who we really are, who we wish to be, and what in our lives creates the sense of belonging that makes us feel connected. A stellar read from start to finish.

[Theresa Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Yet she was all too aware that she, a Russian Jew, was formed by Russia – the Russia of her lifetime and the earlier Russia of her mother and grandparents. She might well be surrounded by freedom and delight, but she carried her past with her. It was as if she were inhabiting two lives simultaneously, and much of the time they were not an easy fit.’

What a novel. I should warn you up front that I’ve used numerous quotes in this review. I just feel as though there are so many profound passages within this story, and who better to demonstrate the beauty of its essence than the author herself?

‘She had thought she would assimilate more quickly if she kept herself separate from other Russian émigrés; now she wondered if she would ever fully assimilate, and, more especially, whether she could tolerate all the losses if she did. What seemed distressingly clear was that her choices – a type of self-annihilation, it now occurred to her – had made her exile total and absolute. She needed other émigrés to connect her with home.’

Invented Lives is a novel about migration, but it’s also about so much more. Novels about the USSR and life ‘behind the iron curtain’ interest me greatly – which I pointed out in my recent review of The Secrets We Kept. We learn much about life within Soviet Russia from Galina’s story, along with so much about Russia’s tumultuous history. It was all so fascinating, and horrifying, and so desperately other to anything I have ever lived. We, who were born in Australia and have lived here all of our lives, are so very lucky. We really probably don’t have any idea just how much, and that’s just further evidence of our luck.

‘There were, she was discovering, so many possible pairings in the existence of the émigré. While gathered with this family in their home, Galina was soaking up their warmth and closeness while simultaneously being aware of what she was being forced to live without. So many impossible pairings. Even émigré and immigrant. To the Soviets she was the former, to the Australians the latter, but to herself she was both. Always this double life: an old Soviet and a new Australian.’

My grandparents were migrants, but from Belgium, not a communist European country. Growing up in a bilingual household, my life was a blend of Australian and Belgian culture. But even witnessing the different things my grandparents struggled with, it’s still so far removed from what Galina’s first experiences within Australia were like. To go from East to West is so monumental: from oppression to freedom. I can’t even begin to express how much I appreciate the authenticity of experience articulated within the pages of this novel. There were so many things that Galina had to face and grapple with that I would never have ever contemplated. The choice available, and being overwhelmed by so many options for everything, really stood out for me. The longing for Russian experiences but knowing that Russia itself was a place no longer for you.

‘And that was the crucial difference. She didn’t have a choice. When she received her exit visa to leave the Soviet Union, she forfeited any right of return. Ever. But there was something else. Imprinted in the semantics of exile was a desire to return, and the assumption that when things had improved, you’d be permitted to return.
Perhaps you stopped being an exile when you no longer wanted to return home because you were home.’

Alongside Galina’s story is that of Andrew and his parents, Leonard and Sylvie. I found Leonard to be a selfish character, but fairly typical of his generation. It was Sylvie who I really championed for and appreciated. Through Galina’s observations of this family, we were privy to a glance back through time, a look at what Australia was like in the mid to late 1980s. It was nostalgic and a little bit cringe worthy in the way that looking back can be, but also kind of quaint. I’m finding that I’m getting a lot of enjoyment of late out of reading books set in the 1980s. Far enough removed to no longer be embarrassing but not that long ago that I can’t remember. Anyway, Leonard and Sylvie provided plenty of fodder to turn over and ponder on. I really did enjoy watching Sylvie’s metamorphosis unfolding in tandem with Leonard’s destabilisation.

‘Given enough time, she can deal with disgust and betrayal, but more difficult is her sense of having been short-changed – by Leonard, certainly, but more so by their marriage. Their long marriage has allowed him freedoms denied to her; their long marriage has been far more generous to him than it has been to her.’

I also immensely enjoyed Sylvie’s letter project. There used to be a time when fat envelopes graced my letterbox frequently, but now they’re few and far between – for everyone, I would think. I still have letters that were written to me by my brother from before he died, when we were in our twenties. This passage; it pierced me.

‘And how much more precious does a letter become – not to me, the collector, but the original recipient – when the writer of the letter has died. Think of it: for the wife who lives on after her husband, the man whose brother has passed away, the woman who’s lost her best friend, death does not alter their letters. I think that’s profound.
Death, which changes almost everything, leaves letters untouched.’

There is a focus on art within this novel that touched me deeply. Each of the main characters were artists: Galina was an illustrator, Andrew a mosaic artist, Leonard had been a poet in his younger days, and Sylvie was a person who embraced many types of creativity. Art was a vivid presence to each of them by differing degrees. I have always been an advocate for the importance of the arts, so this aspect of the novel reached right into me. I just have to share this passage and it’s a fitting way to bring this review to a close too. You will hopefully see, through these words, just how splendid this novel is.

‘Every Russian knows that art saves lives; poetry, music, novels, paintings, all these have saved lives. A million people died in the siege of Leningrad, but the number would have been greater if not for poetry. Throughout those nine hundred desperate days, so her mother had told her, Olga Berggolt’s radio broadcasts encouraged with inspiring words and stories, but most of all it was her poetry that sustained the people.
And another story from the siege: a young woman, an artist, starving like everyone else, who made herself paint through a long freezing night, knowing that if she didn’t she would succumb to the overwhelming desire to curl up on the floor and let death take her.
This meticulous ability to mute pain – that’s what art can do, and Andrew was denying it. Andrew with his comfortable, fear-free life didn’t know what he was talking about.
Then there was Shostakovich’s life-saving Seventh Symphony first heard in Leningrad during the seige. Andrew probably knew nothing of the great Dimitri Dmitriyevich. The Germans tried to stop the performance, they wanted to silence so powerful a weapon. But they failed and the performance went ahead; recorded and played over the wireless, it energised hundreds of thousands of Leningraders. The Nazis knew what Andrew was now denying: art saves life, art gives life. And the reams of literature circulated in samizdat in the post-Stalinist years – people risked their life for this art because they knew it would make them stronger.’

And at the end of this chapter, about Andrew clumsily denying that art saves lives and Galina staunchly refuting this, Andrew himself disproves his own words:

‘He finished just before dawn. He had created a stormy seascape at sunset with a lighthouse. It was unlike anything he had ever done before. He made himself fresh coffee and went up to the roof. It was a vibrant dawn; the sky was lit with the colours of his painting. He watched the sun rise. He had survived the night.’

I love this so much. Enough said. Invented Lives. Just read it and weep at the beauty of it.

Thanks is extended to Scribe for providing me with a copy of Invented Lives for review.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to an improbable "meet cute" situation, I'm afraid I couldn't continue with this although the underlying theme seemed to be interesting.

[Sue Hopkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would of liked to give this book 3.5 stars. I really enjoyed it. A light, easily - light hearted, warming story. It moved along at an enjoyable pace, the writing was rich, the characters just the right amount of depth. I enjoyed the earlier stories of Russia especially. However there was just a little something missing to not give it higher. It repeated itself a lot when talking about Sylvie and Leonard’s marriage, esp from Sylvie’s perspective. I found it frustrating with Mikhail, she appeared to be stronger, more well adjusted just to have caved in like that? Also Leonard’s story was not finished, although I like this, I think with hindsight it was right not to conclude this, if positive it might of spoilt the atmosphere of the book and if negative - too predictable? And Galina and Andrew - again not resolved! All in all, a pretty good read.

[Benjamin Farr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gosh, words cannot adequately describe how good this book is! Hands down the best book of 2019.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to express the intense pleasure of reading Andrea Goldsmith's new novel, Invented Lives. It's not just that it's an absorbing novel that held my interest from start to finish, it's also a book filled with insights that will stay with me for a long time.

While the central character in Invented Lives is Galina Kagan, a Russian émigré to Melbourne, and the novel focusses on her feelings of loss and not belonging, there are other kinds of exile in the novel. One of the most interesting is that of Sylvie Morrow. This older woman, mother to Andrew Morrow who's fallen in love with Galina, is reminiscent of Philippa Finemore in Goldsmith's Modern Interiors (1991). Like Philippa, Sylvie suffered a kind of exile imposed by her gender, because women of her generation were excluded from full participation in society. She was too young to experience the liberating effects of WW2 on women's work, but in adulthood was just the right age to be relegated to postwar domesticity. And just as Philippa finds widowhood liberating, Sylvie in middle age experiences a different kind of widowhood that opens up new worlds for her long-stifled energies too.

Galina's courage is the catalyst for Sylvie's metamorphosis. It is the 1980s, and Gorbachev's reforms in the USSR have enabled Galina's emigration from Leningrad in the wake of her mother's death. Lidiya had been the sole surviving member of her family, the others having fallen victim to Stalin's Terror. But as secular Jews even under perestroika Lidiya and Galina still had few prospects in anti-Semitic Russia, and they were sceptical of Soviet reforms. So when restrictions on Jewish travel were relaxed, mother and daughter submitted requests to leave, knowing that they were signing over the right to change their minds. When Lidiya dies, the bereft Galina grasps the opportunity anyway, and comes to Melbourne, chosen as her destination because of her chance encounter with Andrew Morrow.

Andrew was in Leningrad to study mosaics when he helped Galina to her feet after she took a tumble on the icy pavement. You'll need to view the slide show on my travel blog to see these stunning mosaics in the Church of Spilled Blood in what is now St Petersburg. But about half way through the novel, Galina and Andrew have a little tiff about the power of art. She's just beginning to forge a career as a children's book illustrator and he's an art academic specialising in mosaics. In a throwaway line that he doesn't really believe, he says that art never saves lives. She, the child of a survivor of the WW2 Siege of Leningrad, knows better. She knows from her mother that inspiring broadcasts of Olga Berggolt's poetry gave hope and that she was a symbol of strength and determination to survive; she knows that Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony was written in honour of the besieged city and that its performance by starving musicians gave the city energy instead of despair. Galina knows that Akhmatova's 'Requiem' in the prison lines at the height of Stalin's Terror told people that the world would know of these terrible times, and she knows that people risked their lives to read samizdat in post-Stalinist times because they knew it would make them stronger.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/06/24/i...

[Scribe Publications]

Goldsmith is a masterful storyteller who explores the complex themes of identity and love in her latest novel. Invented Lives deserves a wide audience.
Mark Rubbo, Readings

It is a fabulous book ... It lives on ...What I really loved was the changing seasons of all the characters, their inner beings, their outer beings, their strengths.
Drusilla Modjeska

This is a compassionate and thoughtful depiction of one aspect of multicultural Australia … Invented Lives will appeal to fans to Australian literary fiction for its depiction of rich inner lives, and the conflict between desire and reality.
Louise Omer, Books+Publishing

One of the best books I’ve read in ages. A dizzy pleasure to read a book with such a compelling story … Exquisitely told.
Mem Fox

I liked Invented Lives a lot. It continually held my attention in a way that made me reflect on both my life and the contemporary world. Goldsmith’s writing is extremely assured. The logic of her narrative is impeccable, moving the reader back and forth in a seamless manner. Her characters are authentic (their speech and thoughts are so articulate, perhaps a testament to Goldsmith’s earlier career as a speech pathologist) and her settings very evocative of era and place.
J–Wire, Geoffrey Zygier

In her latest novel, [Andrea Goldsmith] tackles the idea and experience of exile from a surprising perspective.
Jane Sullivan, The Saturday Age

[A] complex and nuanced book … Goldsmith’s novel shows careful research in its evocations of time and place … a thoughtful novel.
Andrew Fuhrmann, The Saturday Paper

Invented Lives is seamless historical fiction with attention to detail. It is a heartfelt and human story of exile, love and self-expression, all hypnotically captured by Goldsmith’s flare as a wordsmith … the work’s greatest feature, what truly sets it apart, is its evocative and emotive character construction. Each character is achingly … Goldsmith’s work is unforgettable, literary and beautiful, and profoundly resonates into modern life.
Mel O’Connor, Echo

Goldsmith writes powerfully about art, love, exile and being true to oneself.
Nicole Abadee, Sydney Morning Herald

Absorbing interior monologues, the convincing details of place and texture, the feel of the weather, all inserted into a larger, meticulously researched historical or ideological background ... The freshest, most impressive quality of Invented Lives is the ease with which Goldsmith quietly rescues narratives of immigration and boy-meets-girl from cliche and convention.
Judith Armstrong, Weekend Australian

Australian novelist Goldsmith offers an intricate and provocative examination of grief and identity wrapped up in a riveting family saga … Goldsmith's writing is enveloping and thought provoking … A beautiful novel that challenges readers with questions that have no simple answers.
Magan Szwarek, Booklist

Goldsmith’s accounts of Galina’s lonely struggles as she tries to find her amputated, landmarkless self in her new setting are wonderfully empathetic and nuanced, and allow for some penetrating comments on Australian attitudes.
Katharine England, Adelaide Advertiser

Her fiction shows characters living deeply, and in Invented Lives, her eighth novel, she does this with the level of skill we have come to expect ... Invented Lives is a novel bursting with references to books, writers and real letters with stamps, and features the famous noticeboard at Readings in Carlton. Goldsmith has always been excellent at conjuring place, and this Melbourne sparkles ... Goldsmith understands that a great deal of personal history is laced with tragedy, and accordingly she has managed, once again, to write a unique story that feels universal.
Louise Swinn, Sydney Morning Herald

This is a multi-layered story of a young Russian immigrant who introduces us to a host of Australian characters on her journey from the Soviet Union to Melbourne in the 1980s. True to expectations, the book offers a social and cultural travel guide through the era and its enormous changes. However, it is the Melbourne setting that will resonate with most readers ... A fascinating eye-opener for many readers.
Karina Barrymore, Herald Sun

Although set largely in Australia, the difficulties all emigrants experience could easily be set in New Zealand, making this book salutary for us all.
Felicity Price, Sunday Star Times

An engrossing read that melds genres and nations.
Jill Nicholas, Daily Post

[EuroHackie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a copy of this novel courtesy of LibraryThing Early Reviewers (giveaway) and the publisher.

I am not the target audience for this book, and that became even more painfully obvious as I read on. I found the main cast of characters (Galina, Andrew, Slyvie, and Leonard) to be one-dimensional, self-absorbed, absolutely miserable, and all adept to the same kind of maladapted learned helplessness, unable or unwilling to go against the inertia of their lives. They never communicate, and thus, never find effective ways to change their misery. I know they never communicate, because there is a minimum of dialog in this book, and what dialog there is is mostly emotionless intellectual arguments that might appeal on some cerebral level to those filled with the same sort of existential angst as these characters, but which I found to be incredibly dull at best and eye-rollingly cringey at worst.

There is nothing that actually ties these characters together. Galina and Andrew have a chance encounter in 1985 in Leningrad, and from that one moment in time Galina decides to move to Melbourne. Not because she has any feelings for Andrew, but because she knows that he's from there. From that one encounter, Andrew constructs an entire relationship with Galina in his head, to the point of creepy obsessiveness, that only his crippling social anxiety keeps at bay. Galina knows that he's in love with her but she doesn't share his feelings; she just never bothers to tell him and assumes that one day he'll either figure it out for himself or understand anyway. And how exactly Sylvie and Leonard, Andrew's parents, become enamoured of Galina is never really made clear. We're told, rather than shown, about their interactions, just like we're told, rather than shown, that these people live in 1980s Australia. Historical events are noted in the backdrop but there is no link to our characters. For all that the historical events of the 1980s matter or have an impact on this story, these characters might as well be living their lives in 2019.

As for the secondary characters, they border on stereotypes: the lithe Winston, terrified of AIDS (which apparently doesn't exist in Asia, his home territory); Mikhail, the crusty Soviet turncoat who crushes niece Galina's spirit the second he appears in her life.

There is no growth for these characters over the course of the novel. There is plenty of change, most of it plot-driven, but no growth. They are just as miserable at the end as they are at the beginning, but for different reasons.

The overarching theme of this book is exile. I know that's the overarching theme because we are hit over the head with it time and again. While these characters wallow in their misery, they have long internal monologues about how isolated they feel and how that compares to physical exile from a home country. I found this all quite insulting; there is a way to write an entertaining story and still be able to have motifs and themes shine through. I don't need the author to bash me over the head with it to "get it."

I did not enjoy this book at all; I found myself wondering, what was the point of this novel, other than the define the various ways exile can isolate a person's life? I already knew that, I didn't need to read 330 pages of miserable people being miserable and not opening their mouths to do anything about that misery to understand that.

[Susanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engaging, thoughtful exploration of what it means to emigrate, and to be an immigrant; how your past is always part of you and the yearning for the known, for your history, continues to shape choices in your present and future.
Thoroughly enjoyed Galina's story, and how her life intersected with, and changed the lives of the Morrow family. I loved details of Andrew's mosaic work and research, and enjoyed the concept of Galina's book.
Highly recommended.

[Tanya · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of Galina who has lost her mother and her country. She emigrates to Australia where she tries so hard to start a new life for herself amid the memories of Mother Russia, her mother and family secrets. This novel includes Russian history and political injustice as a backdrop for Galina's story. The characters of those that she mixes with in Australia have their own stories and I feel their space on the page was too much at times and somewhat distracted from the main plot. A book just about Galina would be much more enjoyable.

The ending was quite abrupt (which I didn't appreciate) after a long winded novel. I read the last page twice to be sure I was clear on how it was ending. Clever title and most symbolic. I liked all the Russian lingo and history included - Goldsmith does a great job at creating a visual of USSR mid 1980s.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 Stars: Galina Kogan planned to emigrate from the Soviet Union to the United States with her mother. But when her mother dies, Galina has a chance encounter with a stranger on the streets of Leningrad and decides to move to Australia instead. The book got a bit bogged down with too much back story on some of the secondary characters and I found some of the plot lines unnecessary. But nevertheless this was an interesting and compelling story and an important contribution to the growing body of literature about the Russian Jewish experience. It was also interesting to read about an immigrant's experience in Australia in the 1980's.

[Penelope · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for my book club. Liked the premise well enough but felt the story was complicated by introducing too many stories and unnecessary characters. Over written perhaps. I wanted more of the main characters’ stories and less of the peripheral characters. Interesting contrasting the way of life between Russia and Australia.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of a Russian girl who migrates from Russia to Australia. An interesting tale of her attempts to fit in and establish herself as an artist. It went a little off track when it started exploring the affair of Sylvia in the face of her husband’s homosexuality.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is a very enjoyable read. The characters overall are interesting and fully formed and engaging. There are one or two plot twists that strain my imagination but having said that am going to read something else by Ms. Goldsmith. I enjoyed watching the main character, Galina, change and adapt to her surroundings. The characters were complex and their interior life did not always match the exterior. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

[Jkmoore100 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice easy read with an outcome that isn’t Hollywood.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite enjoyable, ended a bit abruptly but the characters are really interesting.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book in a publisher's giveaway on Library Thing. Here is my review:
The story starts out in Leningrad where we meet Galina Kogan on the day her mother, her only family, dies. Before her death, Galina and her mother had decided to emigrate, taking advantage of Gobachev's policy of allowing Soviet Jews to emigrate. Walking home, Galina stumbles and collides with a tall young man, who helps her up and apologizes profusely in a mixture of Russian and English. He introduces himself as Andrew Morrow. He explains that he is Australian. He is an artist specializing in mosaics and is assisting on the restoration of famous mosaics at a nearby church. He gives Galina his business card.

Several months later, Galina emigrates. Officially, the only possible destination is Israel, but Galina wants to go to an English speaking country. On a whim, she decides to go to Australia, the home of the young man she collided with on the day her mother died. Officially, Soviet Jews are only permitted to emigrate to Israel, but once outside the Soviet Union, many pick other destinations. Galina is stranded in Italy as a refugee for some time. While in Italy, Galina sees a news reel about Italian emigrants living in the town of Carleton, outside Melbourne. Eventually she receives permission to emigrate to Australia.

Once there, Galina lives with a kindly Orthodox Jewish couple who assist emigres. She obtains two part time jobs working as an artist. She eventually moves out on her own and looks for housing in Carleton. She enjoys her new living place, but feels lonely. She digs out Andrew's business card and calls him.

That is the real beginning of the story. Andrew is Galina's guide to life in Australia. She meets his parents and his mother becomes a sort of aunt to her. His father gives her work as an illustrator. Increasingly, Galina becomes enmeshed in their lives. And then Galina is visited by someone from her Soviet past.

The middle of the book is well written, but there are too many subplots and some of them are not believable. The book ends abruptly with several plot lines unresolved. The ending feels rushed and it almost feels as if the author didn't know how she wanted the story to end. So, well worth reading, but ultimately unsatisfying.

[Lydia · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Invented Lives’ is the story of exile and love; exile from country, exile at home, and exile from one’s true self, all of which are immersed in a tangle of love stories.

Two sides of the world, Australia and the Soviet Bloc collide with the many people seeking solidarity on Australian soil.

Set in the mid 1980s, a young woman Galina Kogan flees Leningrad, Russia alone following the tragic death of her mother, serendipity would have her pursue Australia for her new life.

On arrival, Galina is welcomed into the family of Sylvie and Leonard Morrow, and their adult son Andrew.

The Morrow’s are a complicated family, each with their secrets. Leonard a loving husband and father, is conflicted by uncouth desires, while Sylvie once content with domestic duties begins to question, if she has settled for mediocrity.

Andrew, their only son is a successful mosaic artist who is burdened by his shy and reserved nature, finds himself enamoured by this courageously strong Russian Jewish woman.

‘Invented Lives’ so powerfully tells their stories, it is raw and rich in character and reads like a memoir so real are the layers the author has created.

With all of their struggles, these four navigate the world of love, tragedy, fear, hope and freedom to create a life that holds the good and bad in a beautiful tension.

A fantastic book for first time readers of Andrea Goldsmith or fans alike.

[booksgayscats · Rating 3 out of 5]

A shorter, more to the point review: (listed below is a lengthier review)
A successful narrative arch, but awfully rushed, corny, and forced. Extending on this, it feels as if Goldsmith attempts to pack in as many modern social issues into one short novel as possible. The novel should be completely erased and rewritten as an epistolary think-piece revolving around Sylvie and Leonard’s tumultuous, yet incredibly prosperous and bittersweet, love life. That would be an ambitious novel with a brilliant aim. This novel is ambitious, though there is so much going on that it could get pushed aside for something like Twilight or 50 Shades...Upon finishing the novel, I would not think to recommend this to others, for it would be a waste of their time as a whole; however, Sylvie and Leonard are such incredibly redeeming characters that trekking through this weak novel might be worth it after all, perhaps as a beach read or a distraction from a pestering friend. I give this novel 3 stars, despite my distaste for Goldsmith’s attempt, entirely for the strong character of Sylvie and the subplot of Leonard’s troubling sexual endeavors.

This is my officially written review of the novel, a bit longer:
From ancient Homer to modern Joyce, the theme of exile has been one allowing for a grand gesture of exhibition; a grand voyage through various struggles and their successive moments of overcoming. Andrea Goldsmith’s novel, Invented Lives, unfortunately, does not fly nearly as high as these classic authors’ works; to be blunt, it reads as though it barely wishes to get off the ground. I was intrigued by the themes of exile and loss as advertised in the description of the novel because of my weighty admiration for Joyce and this was one of the driving forces behind my interest in pursuing this novel. Joyce and many of his Irish contemporaries had produced exquisite works of literature due to circumstances and I thought this novel would be a little treat in 2019 where literature tells a much different story than it did 100 years ago. But the distance and time does mean all novels must be a disappointment. Little did I know, the novel would let me down in ways I was not prepared for. Let us indulge.

Invented Lives tells the story of Galina Kolga’s conflicting move to Australia, her mixed-emotions love encounters with Andrew Morrow, and the dissolving marriage of Andrew’s parents, Sylvie and Leonard. Set in the late 1980’s, readers are introduced to many sign-of-the-times topics which ring as true to readers of today as they may have in the 80’s: homosexuality, feminism, the evolving value of love vs. independence, and – for Galina, most importantly – the heavy issue of leaving a troubled home to find a better life for oneself. Exile, immigration, refuge. Each character in the novel can be said to take ownership to one of the issues listed (Leonard-homosexuality; Sylvie-feminism, love vs. independence; uncle Kolga – familial constructs). I believe Goldsmith was shooting too high by trying to include all of these heavy themes as major plotlines. Justly so, the language and narrative technique are almost as messy as the heavily packed subject board. At certain moments, I found myself noting the beauty of lengthy descriptions; however, next to this I scribbled in the margins: where is this talent in the rest of the novel? Galina shares feelings of confusion and being lost upon arriving in Australia; in some aspect, by trying to create a world that she cannot create because it is not first-hand experience, Goldsmith’s prose feels lost in a similar sense. For a specific passage on this thought, see the final paragraph of chapter six. Perspective is key, yes; you are what you know.

The most unbearable components of this novel are the rushed unraveling of events and the corny, imperfect dialogues. In fact, much of the pages in this novel are weak, corny, distracted, and rushed. Perhaps I am far too removed from the life of romance to find any of this sweet, but the relationship of Andrew and Galina is extremely putrid until the last three pages of the novel, for reasons mentioned above. Breaking their connection is the over-dramatized and far too uninteresting character of Galina’s uncle who forces himself into Galina’s life. If Goldsmith wanted this familial allegiance which Galina feels obligated to uphold– here the Uncle-Niece dependency – to be a takeaway, she failed in this remark. I was scoffing and scrunching my nose at every turn of the page by the time Galina found herself catering to every need of the grimy intruder. The amount of distress she endured to satisfy her evil uncle is not something worth applauding. Next, we also must remember the scattered relationship of Leonard and Winston: Winston’s departure and never-to-be-seen-again digression and the ambiguity of Leonard’s test results are just a few of the elements which remain unresolved. What happened to Winston? Does Leonard actually have HIV, or is he wishing to celebrate with his wife because his test is negative?

Returning to Andrew and Galina as a pair, note that much of the conflict between these two is so uncomfortable that it feels unnatural. In one of the few arguments they get into regarding art (Andrew is a mosaicist, Galina an illustrator), the conversation is so silly and unbelievable that I am unsure why it was allowed to be sent to print. The only redeeming qualities of the narrative come earlier in the novel. I think Goldsmith does a crafty job of bringing two souls together in the first few chapters. The distance between Andrew and Galina can be felt and mid-way through the novel one just knows that they are close, connected, and happy with each other. Two souls, both who left home (Galina to Australia, Andrew on leave in Russia), reunited to create a world of their own in a new space.

By the time one might think this novel is about Andrew and Galina’s growth as friends – or lovers – the narrative does a 180 and becomes what I would take away as the most delightful arcs of the novel: the struggles of Sylvie and Leonard. If I personally could have spoken to Goldsmith while she was writing this novel, I would have tried as hard as one might try to encourage the novel be scrapped entirely and be re-written as an epistolary think-piece of the rise and downfall of Sylvie as a woman and her relationship with her husband, Leonard. Invented Lives presents plentiful heavy-hearted moments for expansion and revelation which, had they been properly expanded upon, could have made this novel a 5-star work. I would recommend this book to a middle-aged reader who has nothing better to do with their time. I might even consider cleaning the house before picking up this novel.

[Steve lovell · Rating 4 out of 5]

It aptly emerged around Valentines Day last month, the one-sided cache of letters that the Tasmanian Archives were letting the Hobart public in on to celebrate something or other, maybe just the day of Cupid’s arrow itself. A story was published in the local newspaper, an interview on ABC radio. Through those letters the tyranny of distance was writ large, even when the distance only amounted to that from Bushy Park, up in the Derwent Valley, to the inner city suburb of Newtown. Nothing today. They were his letters. No record of her replies remain. He later was to become the head of a family prominent in Tasmanian affairs, but as a young man, in the 1870s, he was working in the hop-fields and kilns of the Valley. Long hours; daylight to dusk. To visit his town girl back then would require a horse and trap down to New Norfolk, followed by a river steamer into the city. Getting together was therefore problematic, thus the missives between them. They amounted to nearly 200 from him to her, over a period of around two years. The words in these paper communications were delicately intimate, but also gave a portal of intricate detail into a working man’s life amidst the hop-bearing vines in our neck of the woods. Records show they did eventually marry and started to spend a life together. But after a couple of years she was taken from him by TB – but her memory, as well as their devotion, will now last an eternity. Letters allow that.

Fast forward, now, to a novel that I loved, set a century and a bit further on in the Melbourne of around the Bicentenary year. Here Russian woman, Galina, after a chance meeting in St Petersburg, has migrated to Yarra City to begin a new life. Once here she has the other party in that meeting, who loves her, as well as his parents, to assist her in assimilating.

Mother Sylvie collects old letters, an inclination that later turned into a passion. It commenced when she uncovered an enticing one under the floorboards of her home. She finds peering into the lives of others, by reading their mail, is a salve to the mundane everyday existence with her husband, Leopold. Later she is obliged to write a life changing letter of her own. Hubby adores her, but their lives are defined and constrained by his secret.

It’s a beautiful journey, working our way through ‘Invented Lives’, as Galina Kogen disentangles herself from her Russian Jewish past and embraces Australian life, even if she cannot completely embrace Andrew Morrow, who adores her. He’s the man who, in part, was the reason she was in this often perplexing new land, having made a perilous escape to arrive here. She found life with democratic freedom very different to being under the communist thumb. The choices in the shops: just the choices all around. And when she starts to think she has found her forever home on the other side of the world, the past comes crashing back again.

This is a tale of memories, Russian snow and Australian heat, culture clash, different forms of love and the power of letters.

Of course these days digitality has cruelled the standing of letters as a means of personal communication. Auspost has yet again informed the country, in its yearly report, of the ever-diminishing returns from their letter carrying operations, causing another postage price rise and notice of further cutbacks being a possibility for mail delivery services. The world of Galina and Sylvie was perhaps the last hurrah for the post as a force in people’s lives.

‘In a way she (Sylvie) couldn’t explain her letters acknowledged her – much like an absorbing novel did, although in a more personal and targeted way’. As she related to Galina, ‘I get to experience other times, places, people, emotions through letters...I feel remade.’

Sylvie is speaking of her letter collection. She has been doing some soul searching of late about the paucity of her life with the urbane Leopold and is confiding in her new friend, a friend whom she hopes will soon move to the next level in her relationship with son Andrew. ‘Then there’s handwriting. You’re reading something direct from another’s hand. You’re touching their hand – that’s how it feels to me. And I particularly like letters that are hard to decipher. You have to pour over these; it’s the intensest intimacy.’

‘And how much more precious does a letter become – not to me, the collector, but the original recipient – when the writer of the letter has died. Think of it: for the wife who lives on after her husband, the man whose brother has passed away, the woman who’s lost her best friend, death does not alter their letters...You’re able to sit by yourself reading your beloved’s words. Savouring them, responding to them, just as you did when they were alive. Death, which changes almost everything, leaves letters untouched.’

‘...all letters are communications’, Sylvie continued on page 218, ‘all letters speak to someone, all letters invite the reader into the heart and mind of the writer. There’s something deliciously clandestine about letters. I love everything about them.’

Little did Sylvie know what was just around the corner. I’m sure, as with myself, she’d be saddened by the demise of her passion in the world of the C21st. There are some throwbacks, battling against the tide; some lovely people, whom I cherish, even continuing to send off epistles to me. But back in the 90s I had my own world wide net – people from all over the globe who wrote to me and I wrote back. They were called pen-friends. Going to the letter box was a highlight of the day. These days my mail box is full of requests for money, envelopes with windows and unsolicited advertising – apart from a few treasured items. Emails, as well as platforms like Messenger etc, fill the void, of course. They are exceedingly welcome, but it’s not quite the same.

Sylvie’s world will never come back, but I still sit here many mornings scribing away anyway. Hopefully the recipients are, like her, not being put off by my increasingly indecipherable scrawl – for, you see, I just love it.

[Miranda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a weird story, I got to the end but wasn't really enjoying it. Somewhat fragmented and disjointed, drifted randomly between the points of view of various characters without any overarching narrative or thread that tied them together, or not in a way that made sense to me. I did find lots of the stories quite interesting, especially Galya's experiences living in Australia after growing up in the Soviet Union in the 80s. But at the same time was left feeling a bit like.... what was the point of that? I found the writing overdone, overworked, too wordy and rambling and trying to hard to be 'literary'. Feel like a good stiff edit, chopping it down by about a half, might free the bones of good writing from all the waffle.

[Wendy Stacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book which has been meticulously researched and taught me so much about Russian history through the experiences of Galina and her family. Melbourne of the late 80's is vividly depicted. The main characters are all so well drawn, realistic and likeable. The plot is original but completely believable with several surprise revelations towards the end ; I was totally engrossed and have given the book 5 stars. I now intend to read some of this author's earlier novels.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was really well written but didn’t really go anywhere. At times it felt more like a social essay than a fictional novel.

[Felicity Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sense of belonging is something we all crave. A lucky few take it for granted but most of us long to feel we belong – to a group of like-minded friends, to family, to a two or suburb, and especially to a country. How tough must it be then for an immigrant whose grasp of the language is imperfect and whose encounter with our customs and culture is largely baffling. When 24-year-old Jewish Russian book illustrator Galina Kogan leaves Leningrad to settle in Melbourne in the mid-1980s, the culture shock is profound - at times profoundly liberating, yet profoundly confusing.
Galina begins by throwing off the shackles of her Gorbachev-instilled reticence to speak up, to trust anyone other than herself, to socialise outside her small circle of other Russian emigres. Her past life in Leningrad, the loss of her mother (who was supposed to emigrate with her), a diminished use of her talents sketching fashions for pattern covers, all prevent her from melding her past into an Australian self. So, “like a pumice applied to calluses on her feet, she had rubbed and scraped at her Russianness.” She sheds her Russian clothes and haircut, moves away from the quarter where other Russian emigres live, even changes the way she speaks, so that she can assimilate herself into being indistinguishable from other Australians. She tries to fit in with these easy-going people, so casual, and so comfortable in their Australian skins”. But, living miles away from her countrymen and women, absorbed in her two part-time jobs, she realises she is lonely. Finally, she plucks up the courage to contact Andrew Morrow, an Australian mosaicist she literally bumped into in Leningrad when he was hurrying to his study of the mosaics in the Church on Spilled Blood – a beautiful monument to the murdered Emperor Alexander II, being restored after years of deliberate Communist neglect.
Andrew Morrow is painfully shy – so shy he finds it hard to talk to anyone outside his family, and even then his conversations are extremely limited. He has thought of Galina daily in the year since they met so briefly in what is now St Petersburg and is overjoyed when she phones him unexpectedly, not that she would realise this because his shyness renders him practically speechless. Nevertheless, the two meet and negotiate their way through a slow and most unusual romance, devoid of anything more than a fleeting physical contact because of his shyness and her long-instilled inability to let others in. Through Andrew, Galina becomes close to his mother Sylvie, who is struggling to find a sense of self after years of being the perfect wife and mother, and his father Leonard, who is so nice he is too good to be true. As indeed he is found to be when his secret love is revealed. All three Morrow family members prove to be, in their own way, in exile like Galina – searching for their own identity and sense of belonging. Gradually, as the years slip away, there a sense of belonging is achieved for all three, but it is so subtle, so gentle, that it feels genuine and their tussles with identity feel like our own. Although set largely in Australia, the difficulties emigrants of all nationalities experience in a new country could easily be set here in New Zealand, making this book salutary for us all.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having admired Goldsmith's previous novels, I looked forward to this immensely and from the first few pages I knew I would not be disappointed. The first chapter is enticingly titled Death and Reckless Behaviour in Leningrad. It is 1985 and there is prospect of change under Gorbachov. But Galina is not convinced and in the aftermath of her mother's death she decides to pursue the option of emigration. Through a chance encounter with Andrew she decides on Australia.

Arrivals in a new country need to reinvent their lives and Goldsmith writes tellingly of this experience. But others invent their lives too because their preferred pathway or identity may not be acceptable to family or to society more generally. How people find ways to survive, even flourish, while they are suppressing other aspects of their personalities, is central to this novel. The flashbacks to the lives of Galina and her family in Russia and into the lives of Andrew's family in Australia add historical and social interest.

And then there's the language - in the end it's always about the language, the writerly skill, nailing an emotion or showing us the complexities of our lives. At one point Andrew's mother thinks 'Compared to Galya, she may well have passed her own life in a prettily painted biscuit tin.' Later she recognises that 'Mark pushed old age to the horizon and then, with a nonchalant shove, toppled it out of sight.' The novel is full of sentences like this, providing insight and readerly pleasure.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find myself unable to browse library shelves anymore, but rely on finding books through reviews, and keep a list of recommendations on my phone. This was one that I often pulled out from the library shelf, but somehow the nondescript cover and blurb made me put it back. But knowing Covid-19 lockdown was upon us, I grabbed many books to read, and this was one of them. And one of the best books I've read for a long time. Thank you to the unknown reviewer/booklist!

What starts as the story of Galina, Russian Jew and would be emigre, becomes many people's stories. It's not told from different points of view - the author continues to use the third person - but as the novel unfolds different characters become the focus, and we get to see their lives. A chance meeting with an Australian, Andrew Morrow, leads to Galina emigrating to Melbourne. Galina becomes close to the Morrow family, and we in turn learn of their stories; shy, besotted Andrew; lively wife-and-mother Sylvie, and father and businessman Leonard.

I dislike novels that say "everyone has a secret" but in this case everyone does have another life. However the characters are real and complex; their stories aren't forced and the reader isn't manipulated in the way we learn of their lives.

The novel is set in the 1980s, which now seems a world away, and yet so familiar. The politics of the time, the concerns of the time are all what I remember. The novel has an ending that will not please all readers, yet I'm still imaging endings days after I finished this.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Galina and her mother had been looking forward to finally escaping the Soviet Union and emigrating to the United States. It's the late 1980s and under Perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev allowed Jews to leave the Soviet Union. But Galina's mother has just died, and she will be making the trip alone. But on leaving the hospital after signing her mother's death certificate, she literally runs into a young Australian, and changes her destination.

This meet-cute is annoying, but don't let it color your appreciation if the rest of the book. Galya is taken under the wing of a Jewish couple in Melbourne, but since she has not idea of what it means to be a Jew, she is not drawn to the community. They help her settle and she begins her new life in a very different place.

Yes, she does call the young man she fell over in Russia, but their path is far from easy. She becomes friends with his family, lovely people with enough secrets to fill a large storage unit, let alone a simple closet. As Galya peruses her career as an illustrator. Will fragments of her Soviet past come to Australia? Of course. Although there are some cute-meet moments, this novel is rooted in a solid family drama that makes "Invented Lives" a solid and satisfying read.

~~Candace Siegle, Greedy Reader

[Laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Galina Kogan’s mother dies, she leaves Gorbachev’s Russia for a life in Australia. Originally, she and her mother had planned to emigrate to America together, but her mother’s death and a chance encounter with a young Australian, Andrew Morrow, has Galina making an impulsive change of plans. Melbourne becomes her final destination and she’s faced with making a life on her own in a strange city. But Galina isn’t the only character in Andrea Goldsmith’s novel experiencing upheaval and life change. Both Sylvie and Leonard Morrow, Andrew’s parents, experience their own. In fact, Andrew seems the least affected and in some ways, the most marginal of characters in the book, yet it was he who set everything in motion.

I found so much to like about Invented Lives, my first Goldsmith novel. I thought Galina was finely drawn, as was her transition from Leningrad to Melbourne. Her entire experience as a émigré seemed meant to speak across decades, even though her circumstances could not be totally dissimilar from today’s migrant’s world. My only real complaint is that most of the particularly significant action took place in the latter half of the book and that said, the narrative, to me, would have been far richer had the stories come sooner.