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2022 National Jewish Book Award Finalist in Autobiography & Memoir; 2022 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist; and a 2022 WNBA Great Group Reads Selection
"Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour is more ambitious than the average memoir. It’s informed by Galina’s and her parents’ lessons on the value of art and culture and enriched by Alëna’s beautifully constructed images and Galina’s poetry." – Herb Randall, LA Review of Books
Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour traces Yelena Lembersky’s childhood in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) in the 1970s and ‘80s. Her life is upended when her family decides to emigrate to America, but instead her mother is charged with a crime and unjustly incarcerated.
Told in the dual points of view, this memoir is a clear-eyed look at the reality of life in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, giving us an insider’s perspective on the roots of contemporary Russia. It is also a coming-of-age story, heartfelt and funny, a testament to the unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters, and the healing power of art.
“Breathtaking memoir.”
— Robin Young, Here & Now
“Strikes a real chord given the ongoing Russian war with Ukraine.”
— Tiziana Dearing, Radio Boston
“Galina and her daughter Alëna … have painted a vivid portrait — one of life in and escape from a country that now exists only in memories and memoirs… Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour is more ambitious than the average memoir. It’s informed by Galina’s and her parents’ lessons on the value of art and culture and enriched by Alëna’s beautifully constructed images and Galina’s poetry. Yet their tale always feels honest both in its broad strokes and finer details… How fortunate then that Yelena and Galina have revealed their own truth.”
“Yelena and Galina Lembersky’s memoir Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour combines the sober documentation of real events in Soviet Russia from the 1970s and 1980s with the emotional density of personal experience. Intertwining polar perceptions and confronting personal states—nostalgia and fear, anticipation and hopelessness, loneliness and intimacy, a sense of rootlessness and cultural belonging—it builds a vivid panorama of the turbulent, catastrophic events in the life of mother and daughter… in the Soviet context during the Cold War. …
Although the feeling of helplessness and despair, the doubt in humanism, and the sense of decaying values are dominant in Yelena Lembersky’s narrative, clear optimistic suggestions can also be found in the memoir. Among them is the idea of the healing power of art. … Another optimistic vein refers to the indestructible bond between mothers and daughters, and the spiritual resilience transmitted from generation to generation of women. … This vein does not allow such a story of women’s determination and resistance demonstrated in the context of life’s extremes, to be washed away like a drop of ink in a downpour.”
“This memoir presents a genuine and moving portrayal of the trials of the Soviet Jewish intelligentsia, striving to keep its dignity under conditions of harsh state control and material privation.”
“[E]xquisitely poetical...”
“Many Soviet women have turned to memoir to describe and process their experiences of life in the USSR, from the Bolshevik revolution to the Stalin era. Galina and Yelena Lembersky have offered a new twist on the genre, however, by co-authoring a mother-daughter memoir. … Scholars of the USSR will recognize many elements of the Lembersky family’s story. But for those well-versed in the history, the memoir also provides a fascinating insider’s view of how patronage and corruption worked within Soviet services like the beauty industry. … The text is well written with evocative language… The book would find crossover readership between the public interested in the experience of Soviet Jews in the waning years of the USSR and classroom use. Reading it, I thought about designing an undergraduate course on Soviet women’s memoirs; this team effort by mother and daughter would be a natural fit for such a course, shedding light on both everyday life and state repression, and the ways they intersect.”
“This story about life in the Soviet Union is valuable partly because it is not about prominent refuseniks or about the Russian gulags or about the Second World War. This is a close-up look at what ordinary postwar existence was like for Jewish citizens of the USSR… On the hyper-saturated memoir shelf this approach to the Soviet Union is under-represented… The pair’s narrative — divided into sections by Yelena and Galina — is compelling and parts are beautifully written. Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour provides an unusual glimpse into the world of Soviet citizens which has been more frequently described by men. I was particularly struck by the long-term consequences of casual decisions and the bravery of ordinary people — strangers as well as friends. The book raises thorny issues of family loyalty, the importance of artists and art, and the many aspects of individual agency that Americans take for granted.”
— Helen Epstein, The Arts Fuse
“This is a profoundly powerful and poignant memoir, both significant and stunning. It combines an incomparable and sweeping overview—of a time and place of great horror and sometimes hope that remain completely unknown to those who did not live it—with an artist’s eye for intimate detail and a poet’s ear for metaphor and simile.”
—Ori Z Soltes, Teaching Professor of Jewish Civilization, Georgetown University
“Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour pulls readers into the raw realities faced by Jews who tried to emigrate from Soviet Russia. While focused on Leningrad in the 1970s and ’80s, the account has new relevance today. The precise details, recalled from separate viewpoints of a young daughter and her mother, are shocking but all too familiar for many. Reactions to the loss of their home, false imprisonment, anger, and stubborn ambition to survive are expressed with harsh and often poetic honesty. The profound influence of their father and grandfather, artist Felix Lembersky, his belief that art and integrity were crucial, is a constant and sustaining theme of their chronicle of life in limbo.”
—Alison Hilton, Wright Family Professor Emerita of Art History, Georgetown University; author of Russian Folk Art
“A gripping memoir about out-waiting political injustice, out-waiting political antisemitism, and about the non-negotiable price of winning. A miracle—accomplished in great measure by the understated love and loyalty, beautifully crafted and presented, between mother and daughter.”
—Rabbi Joseph Polak, Chief Justice, Rabbinical Court of Massachusetts; author of After the Holocaust the Bells Still Ring
“Unsparing, with devastating clarity, this extraordinary mother-daughter memoir is like a drop of ink that seeps into every crevice of Soviet life in the 1970s and 1980s. It captures the fierce devotion of three generations of women to each other, their commitment to preserve Felix Lembersky’s art (including his rare Babi Yar paintings), and resilience through brutal imprisonment, painful family separations, and challenging obstacles to immigrate to the United States as Russian Jews. The honest, lyrical coming-of-age narrative intersects with the unflinching candor of a Soviet mother’s perspective, which together form an unforgettable story of heartbreaking truths and tender memories.”
—ChaeRan Freeze, Frances and Max Elkon Chair in Modern Jewish History, Brandeis University
Yelena Lembersky is an American author of two books, Felix Lembersky: Paintings and Drawings (2009), and Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour, co-authored with her mother, Galina. Yelena's writing has appeared in The Forward, World Literature Today, and Cardinal Points Literary Journal, and she was a repeated guest on National Public Radio. She grew up in Leningrad and immigrated to the USA in 1987. She holds degrees in art and architecture from MIT and the University of Michigan. She is a granddaughter of Felix Lembersky (1913-1970), prominent Jewish artist with roots in Ukraine, best known for his Babyn Yar canvases and non-figurative work that resisted Soviet propaganda.
NOTE ON NAMES
PART
ONE: ALЁNA
In the Woods
From the Beginning
Village in a Stack
Rain and Frost
The Shared and the Unspoken
A Time to Uproot
Pápochka
To Fairyland
Within and Without
PART
TWO: GALIA
The Rain You
Accidentally Saw
My Childhood
My Marriage
The Decision to
Emigrate
At the Railway
The Supermarket
The Beauty Salon
Kosmétika’s District
Branch
The Unplanned
Krestí Prison
The Zóna: Sáblino
Labor Camp
The City of Bitter
PART
THREE: ALЁNA
Adolescence
A Time to Wait
Drawing with Erasers
On the Ladders
“MEMORY” by Galia Lembersky
GLOSSARY
CREDITS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS