Good Reads / Community Library Notes
I Was Anastasia
Ariel Lawhon
Review by Priscilla Comen
I Was Anastasia
Ariel Lawhon
Review by Priscilla Comen
I Was Anastasia by Ariel Lawhon is the historical story of the Romanov daughter that fascinated the world after the Russian revolution. In 1968 Anna is visited by two women: one is the daughter of Rasputin, Maria, with the same cold blue eyes as her father, the other, Patte a biographer with notebook and camera. A flashback brings the reader to 1917 and Russia where gun shots are heard and the children are afraid. Alexy and his spaniel curl together. Alexy is a hemophiliac and he and Anastasia watch out the window together. He will be Tsar someday but the people don’t want to be ruled any longer.
Anastasia stops in mother’s room. Mother says “Revolution” and :Now we pray.” All the servants have fled, and mother tells the captain of the guard to take his men to safety. He says they will be taken to England if they don’t fight. She knows he is lieing and she sees an artillery gun being wheeled into the courtyard to face the house.
Forward to 1968 and Anna awakens in the hospital in Germany. She is called Fraulein Anderson now and lives in a small cottage outside the Black Forest near a small village. She has sixty-two cats but no one cares. When she leaves the cottage she takes the ivory chess set, a hollow, carved icon, and a photo album. She’s driven quickly to the airport to fly to America before anyone knows she’s left Germany.
The High Court wants photos of Anna as a young child but how is she to get them. They are in Russia. A producer wants to make a film and everyone tries to take advantage of her. But Dominique is her best friend and gives her a pretty dress to wear at the tribunal hearings.
Flashback to her father finally coming home where he is arrested, stripped of his title of Czar and his uniform. Another witness before the tribunal says he can prove Anastasia is dead. He, himself, was imprisoned in the basement where the imperial family was brought on July 17, 1918. He was made to load the bodies into a wagon. Fast forward to the 20thcentury, Anna goes to see Ingrid Bergman who will do the film.
Bergman wants to know why Anna was on a bridge in Berlin and how she felt then. Anna signs a contract so Bergman can do the film.
Back in Russia Karensky shows the Romanov children the pornographic drawings on the garden wall, of Rasputin in sexual positions with their mother, the former Empress Dowager. Author Lawhon gives many details to shed light upon this fantastic story. Anna wears an expensive pair of diamond earrings to have a saleable item on herself. Karensky describes how he killed Alelxy’s pet elephant because he cost too much money to keep alive.
In 1943 Anna must leave Germany as allied bombs fall. Once again she packs the photo album the chess set, a paper knife. Down in the cellar the building is flattened by bombs. Soon they are traveling East on the train, not bound for England but loaded onto a boat where the tracks end. Anna sleeps on the deck, her pet dog guarding her. Later, inher forties, she is scheduled to meet Hitler. She meets the Schanakowska family from Poland and it’s found they are not Anna’s relatives. In 1917 they are taken to a filthy house n Tabolsk, Russia. They clean it and go to town to get cleaning supplies. Later in 1931 Annie Burr Jennings has Anna committed to an asylum with a private room and certain privileges. Tomas, one of the guards at her palace smiles his dimpled grin at her and she smiles back. One of her sisters is cuddling with another guard. Two weeks later they are all bored, still imprisoned. Books and needlework are not enough. In 1929 a corporation is formed to help Anna meet her needs for research, travel, and appeals. A group of investors will receive Anna’s inheritance if she wins her case as a Romanov. Annie Jennings has no children and an empty guest house and loads of money. Before in Tobolsk,, the sisters had sewn the Romanov jewels into corsets and camisole hems. On Christmas they are permitted to go to a candlelight service at the local church with a guard.
Author Lawhon whisks us from the deadly Siberian winter in 1917 to the glitter of Manhattan in 1938 when Anna’s appeal is again denied. In New York the composer Rachmaninoff comes to visit and they shout at one another with her attorney about giving money to a fraud. The family asks that Anna renounce all claims to the name and title of Anastasia Romanov. Because of the kindness of the composer headlines read “Legendary Duchess Lands” and Anna is now called Anna Anderson when she arrives from Germany. She now lives at Xenia’s mansion at Oyster Bay, Long Island. Xenia is a Romanov and gives Anna lodging. A private investigator says the family of Czar Nicholas believes Anna is a fraud. In an antique shop Anna sees a chess set made from an elephant tusk and an icon that had once contained a message asking for help from the English.
Does Anna Anderson live a long life still believing she is Anastasia, the prncess? Find out in this fascinating story of the Romanov family on the new fiction shelf of your local library. This book will make you believe in possible happy endings even though you know the true story.
Anastasia stops in mother’s room. Mother says “Revolution” and :Now we pray.” All the servants have fled, and mother tells the captain of the guard to take his men to safety. He says they will be taken to England if they don’t fight. She knows he is lieing and she sees an artillery gun being wheeled into the courtyard to face the house.
Forward to 1968 and Anna awakens in the hospital in Germany. She is called Fraulein Anderson now and lives in a small cottage outside the Black Forest near a small village. She has sixty-two cats but no one cares. When she leaves the cottage she takes the ivory chess set, a hollow, carved icon, and a photo album. She’s driven quickly to the airport to fly to America before anyone knows she’s left Germany.
The High Court wants photos of Anna as a young child but how is she to get them. They are in Russia. A producer wants to make a film and everyone tries to take advantage of her. But Dominique is her best friend and gives her a pretty dress to wear at the tribunal hearings.
Flashback to her father finally coming home where he is arrested, stripped of his title of Czar and his uniform. Another witness before the tribunal says he can prove Anastasia is dead. He, himself, was imprisoned in the basement where the imperial family was brought on July 17, 1918. He was made to load the bodies into a wagon. Fast forward to the 20thcentury, Anna goes to see Ingrid Bergman who will do the film.
Bergman wants to know why Anna was on a bridge in Berlin and how she felt then. Anna signs a contract so Bergman can do the film.
Back in Russia Karensky shows the Romanov children the pornographic drawings on the garden wall, of Rasputin in sexual positions with their mother, the former Empress Dowager. Author Lawhon gives many details to shed light upon this fantastic story. Anna wears an expensive pair of diamond earrings to have a saleable item on herself. Karensky describes how he killed Alelxy’s pet elephant because he cost too much money to keep alive.
In 1943 Anna must leave Germany as allied bombs fall. Once again she packs the photo album the chess set, a paper knife. Down in the cellar the building is flattened by bombs. Soon they are traveling East on the train, not bound for England but loaded onto a boat where the tracks end. Anna sleeps on the deck, her pet dog guarding her. Later, inher forties, she is scheduled to meet Hitler. She meets the Schanakowska family from Poland and it’s found they are not Anna’s relatives. In 1917 they are taken to a filthy house n Tabolsk, Russia. They clean it and go to town to get cleaning supplies. Later in 1931 Annie Burr Jennings has Anna committed to an asylum with a private room and certain privileges. Tomas, one of the guards at her palace smiles his dimpled grin at her and she smiles back. One of her sisters is cuddling with another guard. Two weeks later they are all bored, still imprisoned. Books and needlework are not enough. In 1929 a corporation is formed to help Anna meet her needs for research, travel, and appeals. A group of investors will receive Anna’s inheritance if she wins her case as a Romanov. Annie Jennings has no children and an empty guest house and loads of money. Before in Tobolsk,, the sisters had sewn the Romanov jewels into corsets and camisole hems. On Christmas they are permitted to go to a candlelight service at the local church with a guard.
Author Lawhon whisks us from the deadly Siberian winter in 1917 to the glitter of Manhattan in 1938 when Anna’s appeal is again denied. In New York the composer Rachmaninoff comes to visit and they shout at one another with her attorney about giving money to a fraud. The family asks that Anna renounce all claims to the name and title of Anastasia Romanov. Because of the kindness of the composer headlines read “Legendary Duchess Lands” and Anna is now called Anna Anderson when she arrives from Germany. She now lives at Xenia’s mansion at Oyster Bay, Long Island. Xenia is a Romanov and gives Anna lodging. A private investigator says the family of Czar Nicholas believes Anna is a fraud. In an antique shop Anna sees a chess set made from an elephant tusk and an icon that had once contained a message asking for help from the English.
Does Anna Anderson live a long life still believing she is Anastasia, the prncess? Find out in this fascinating story of the Romanov family on the new fiction shelf of your local library. This book will make you believe in possible happy endings even though you know the true story.