A Partial History of Lost Causes

Starred review from November 7, 2011
In Dubois’s terrific debut, Aleksandr Bezetov arrives in Leningrad to study chess on the day of Stalin’s centenary celebration in 1979 and meets two men who publish a dissident journal called A Partial History of Lost Causes. In Cambridge, Mass. in 2006, 30-year-old university lecturer Irina Ellison lives with a diagnosis of Huntington’s disease, a hereditary degenerative illness that often leads to early death. After her Russophile father dies, Irina finds an unanswered letter he wrote after learning of his illness to Aleksandr asking how the chess champion is ever able to continue a game he knows he won’t win. On impulse, Irena leaves her lover and her Cambridge life and goes to Russia to track down the retired chess champion and have him answer the question in person, only to find out that Aleksandr has taken up the biggest lost cause of all: running against Vladimir Putin for president of Russia. Moving between Aleksandr’s past and Irina’s present journey of self-discovery, the two stories eventually come together as Irina joins Aleksandr’s quixotic political campaign and becomes swept up in his dangerous attempt to expose Putin. In time, these unlikeliest of allies form a touching bond based on Irina’s diagnosis and the constant threats against Aleksandr’s life. In urgent fashion, Dubois deftly evokes Russia’s political and social metamorphosis over the past 30 years through the prism of this particular and moving relationship.

January 15, 2012
He's a Russian chess champion and would-be President; she's an American facing terminal illness. Losing gracefully is a challenge for them both in this mildly piquant debut. A chess prodigy from a humble home, Aleksandr Bezetov enrolls in Leningrad's chess academy in 1979. The lonely young man falls in with three dissidents who put out a journal documenting arrests of fellow activists, and he distributes it, while racking up ever more chess victories. Then one of his companions is killed in an "accident." The Party tells Aleksandr he can represent his country if he ends his agitprop; he does so with a clear conscience and wins the World Championship while still in his early 20s. (Here and elsewhere, Dubois appropriates the career highlights of the real-life champion Kasparov.) Meanwhile in Cambridge, Mass., a very different story is unfolding. Irina Ellison is the daughter of a music professor and chess enthusiast with Huntington's. He dies after 20 years of brain and body disintegration. The odds of Irina beating this inherited disease are only 30 percent. While still lucid, her father had written to Akeksandr, seeking advice on how to make a "graceful exit." Irina finds the letter after his death. Now 30, she is determined to spare her loved ones (a barely glimpsed mother and boyfriend) the agony of watching her unravel. The obvious answer, suicide, is referenced but not fully considered. No, she will fly the coop, and maybe extract some ultimate wisdom from Aleksandr. Once in Russia, she admits "my quest was absurd." She's right, of course. Dubois masks the absurdity by deflecting our attention to Aleksandr's story (essentially, it's been his all along). By now it's 2006, and he's heading up a coalition of anti-Putin forces, even though it's a lost cause fighting a ruthless regime. He gives Irina a job, but (surprise!) no exit strategy. Dubois' impressive mastery of her Russian material makes one hopeful for a more credible story line next time around.

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October 1, 2011

Chess champion-turned-dissident Aleksandr Bezetov tilts at windmills when he takes on Vladimir Putin in a political campaign, while American Irina Ellison faces the certainty that she has inherited Huntington's disease, which killed her father. What ties them together is Irina's quest to meet Bezetov, to whom her father had once written a letter asking how one copes with a lost cause. Moving between the gray 1970s Soviet Union and up-for-grabs contemporary Russia, this debut would seem to address our fighting spirit in the best way possible. A good first move for Stegner Fellow duBois; I'm reserving time for this one.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2012
Thirty-year-old English lecturer Irina Ellison's heart breaks as she watches her once vibrant father, Frank, succumb to Huntington's disease. Knowing that his days are numbered, Frank, an avid chess player, writes to Aleksandr Bezetov, the world's finest player, in Russia. He asks him what he does when he's losing a game, when he senses all hope is gone. Aleksandr never writes back (though an assistant pens an apologetic note). When Irina is diagnosed with Huntington's herself, she sets out almost immediately for St. Petersburg to find an answer to her father's question. (Huntington's can begin its devastation as early as age 30, so Irina knows she doesn't have much time.) She holes up in a depressing youth hostel, tracks down Aleksandr, and begins working with him on a most unlikely political campaign. Debut novelist duBois' promising premise wears thin around the novel's halfway mark, but she keeps things lively with a cast of quirky characters, from a snooty Russian trophy wife to a cadre of political activists disgruntled with the state of the state.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)