A Partial History of Lost Causes

Although the premise of LOST CAUSES seems wrought with anguish, both main characters strive to find meaning in their dissolving lives. Kathe Mazur and Stephen Hoye perform splendid counterpoints to each other, using subtle tones of despair tempered by hints of bewildered irony and cautious emotion. In Russia, world chess champion Bezetov becomes embroiled in post-Cold War dissident politics, risking his life as he pits himself against Vladimir Putin and his policies. Decades later, across the world, Irina Ellison confronts Huntington's disease and the limitations ahead, which she knows all too well since her father died of the disease. She seeks out Bezetov in Russia to respond to her father's unanswered question about persevering in the face of a lost cause--a question that is now intensely personal to Irina. Both characters' fates collide in a triumph of courage, wisdom, and compassion. A.W. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

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.