The Stalin Epigram -- finished

I didn't want this book to end. I knew it had to and I knew, at least I thought I knew how it would end. But I didn't want to read it.

These were characters—real people—I learned to love and admire in 363 simply written, carefully written pages. I don't know how they carried on as they lived and worked in an atmosphere tense with paranoia. But they did. They continued not only to live, but to create new poetry, to cherish friends and colleagues. The weightlifter's innocence charmed me. The poet couple's dedication to one another inspired me. Stalin and his cronies terrified me more and more with each new sentence.

And now it's over. But I think this is one of those books I will remember.

A good way to begin 2010, a year of reading and writing.