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The Line

by Olga Grushin (Goodreads Author)

3.59 of 5 stars 3.59 · rating details · 245 ratings · 61 reviews

Grushin's stunning debut drew praise that placed her in the top rank of young literary voices. Now she returns with that rarity: a second novel even more dazzling than her first.

The line: the universal symbol of scarcity and bureaucracy that exists wherever petty officials are let loose to abuse their powers.

The line begins to form on the whispered rumor that a famous...more

Hardcover, 336 pages

Published April 1st 2010 by A Marian Wood Book/Putnam

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Jul 20, 2010 Lisa added it · review of another edition

Olga Grushin's The Concert Ticket is a beautifully written, almost mystical story that shows how people can find meaning in their lives even in the grimmest of conditions.
As a family waits in a long line in Soviet Russia for concert tickets, they start to become discontented with their lives, and look for answers elsewhere. Gradually, they cannot help discovering secrets about each other that they never knew. Will the line bring them closer together or tear them apart?
I especially liked Grushin'...more

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Aug 31, 2011 Felice rated it 4 of 5 stars

You cannot think about the bad old days of the U.S.S.R. without thinking of the endless lines for bread, toilet paper and seemingly all of life’s necessities. Apparently lines could form in an instant if a report circulated that an item was about to be scarce. Life taught that no matter what the prize at the end of the line was going to be it was something that you shouldn’t risk not getting when you could. It’s this Soviet experience that is the starting point for the novel The Line by OlgaGrus...more You cannot think about the bad old days of the U.S.S.R. without thinking of the endless lines for bread, toilet paper and seemingly all of life’s necessities. Apparently lines could form in an instant if a report circulated that an item was about to be scarce. Life taught that no matter what the prize at the end of the line was going to be it was something that you shouldn’t risk not getting when you could. It’s this Soviet experience that is the starting point for the novel The Line by OlgaGrushin.

The line that Grushin forms in her story is for concert tickets. It is Leningrad 1962 and rumor has it that the great Selinsky (Think Stravinsky.) will be returning for a concert after years of political and artistic exile. Wife, mother and teacher Anna sees the queue, hears the whispers and joins the line. It doesn’t matter that if the concert is happening that it won’t be until the following year. Soon the line is 300 people long. There they wait through winter, spring and fall in front of the closed kiosk. Not only is the concert a rumor but so is the on sale site for the tickets. Once in a while the kiosk opens, the lined up sigh happily but the tickets turn out to be for state sanctioned folk dance performances. Still the music lovers stand their ground.

Anna and her family take turns waiting in line. Husband Sergei longs to be part of real music. He makes a living as a tuba player in a band that performs at parades and state sponsored celebrations. Sergei and Anna have a do-nothing, ungrateful son, Alexander . He is supposed to be attending classes at the University but isn’t. He wants a ticket in order to scalp it. Grandma sees the ticket as a reminder of her youth. She was a ballerina back in the Czar days and was for a brief moment Sergei’s mistress.
The Line and the line both move at a slow pace but I was so caught up in the exaggerated interactions, the misadventures and the strategies of the lined up that it was only an occasional issue for me. Using the conceit of the line as a way to tell the story and recreate the U.S.S.R., Grushin builds a picaresque Waiting for Godot kind of community. The odd suspense of waiting or maybe worry about those waiting, the cross section of society and the culture of being in line all come together with Grushins’ talent and make a very interesting, pleasing and a little exotic read.(less)

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Apr 12, 2011 Mary Lou rated it 5 of 5 stars

An amazingly poetic, close observation of people living restricted, constrained lives. Some of the restriction is imposed by a closed society, one that resembles Russia at various times during the 20th century, a joyless society where fear rules and people must speak and act guardedly or risk being informed on and, at the least, losing their jobs, at worst disappearing into a prison. Some of the restriction is self-imposed, evidenced by people who have lost hope and who wall themselves off from...more

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Jan 24, 2011 Brandon rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: russia, history, romance

Grushin's "The Line" is about love, adolescence, desire, greed, hope, and passion. Inspired by a real life, year long line in Russia, The Line follows a family as they take turns waiting in this line for the opportunity to buy a single ticket to, what they think is, a concert. This story isn't really about the line though. The line is simply used as a vehicle for the many other stories Grushin tells.[return][return]I enjoyed reading this book and I enjoyed the imagery it provided of Russia. At t...more Grushin's "The Line" is about love, adolescence, desire, greed, hope, and passion. Inspired by a real life, year long line in Russia, The Line follows a family as they take turns waiting in this line for the opportunity to buy a single ticket to, what they think is, a concert. This story isn't really about the line though. The line is simply used as a vehicle for the many other stories Grushin tells.[return][return]I enjoyed reading this book and I enjoyed the imagery it provided of Russia. At times, I found Grushin's writing style to be a tad flowery with adjectives used excessively. While a small flaw, it does help to paint a very vivid picture. In many cases, the narrative floats away from reality and into a dream world almost without the reader noticing. On several occasions, I would stop reading in a confused state because there were suddenly new characters or a different location. Going back a few paragraphs and following more slowly, I see that we've fallen off into dream land. At first, this annoyed me, but I started to anticipate it later in the book and no longer had trouble following these transitions.[return][return]This novel isn't a single story, but instead, several stories that intertwine. By the end, pretty much every one of these stories becomes connected, which I felt was a bit contrived and somewhat unnecessary. At the same time, the small connections that kept popping up made me anticipate some big revelation that would draw everything together. This never really happens, and instead, the links are weaker and given less importance.[return][return]When I finished the book, I felt as though nothing "really" happened. Each individual character went through a lot, but by the end, I felt as though their characters were the same as at the beginning of the book, only a year older. Sure, there are some changes that happen as they would during any year, but I was yearning for something more. Perhaps this was meant as a statement though, that after an entire year, as bizarre as this one, life in Russia is still bleak and gray.[return][return]I would recommend this book to anybody interested in life in Russia and anyone who likes a good character story. If you are looking for page turning suspense or shattering surprises, this isn't really your book. Even without this, the book was never boring, but I felt like it kept skimming the surface of something bigger without breaking through.(less)

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Feb 23, 2010 Ursina rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-read, 2010-release, own-it, war-crime-edge

Talent, emotion and the pure power of words come together in The Line by Olga Grushin. Due out for release in late March by Penguin Canada, this book is one of those you might not finish all at once but are guaranteed to remember. Here's what Goodreads had to say:

The line: the universal symbol of scarcity and bureaucracy that exists wherever petty officials are let loose to abuse their powers.

The line begins to form on the whispered rumor that a famous exiled composer is returning to Moscow...more Talent, emotion and the pure power of words come together in The Line by Olga Grushin. Due out for release in late March by Penguin Canada, this book is one of those you might not finish all at once but are guaranteed to remember. Here's what Goodreads had to say:

The line: the universal symbol of scarcity and bureaucracy that exists wherever petty officials are let loose to abuse their powers.

The line begins to form on the whispered rumor that a famous exiled composer is returning to Moscow to conduct his last symphony. Tickets will be limited. Nameless faces join the line, jostling for preferred position. But as time passes and the seasons change and the ticket kiosk remains shuttered, these anonymous souls take on individual shape. Unlikely friendships are forged, long-buried memories spring to life, and a year-long wait is rewarded with unexpected acts of kindness that ease the bleakness of harshly lived lives. A disparate gaggle of strangers evolves into a community of friends united in their desire to experience music they have never been allowed to hear.

The Line is a transformative novel that speaks to the endurance of the human spirit even as it explores the ways in which we love-and what we do for love.

While this book is not something I normally read, I got an ARC of it from Penguin Canada. I have to say for a second novel, this is an amazing show of writer's talent. Grushin can string together words in a way that you normally only find from authors that go down in history as 'great'. She brought out an emotion and depth to her writing that I have rarely read. As you read this story you can feel the black clouds hanging over Anna and her family's head. You can get a great sense of what Russia was like back when it was the USSR without needing a history lesson. What I liked best was how the characters always seemed to hope for something and no matter how terrible things got, they clung to this hope. The kiosk becomes a way of living and a daily part of their lives after the first time somebody asks, "What do you want?". The Line is about wishes, hope, family and sacrifices. There are, according to the author's note, several true historical facts in the book. Because I am just awe-struck by the emotion and the power pulled from words by the author, I give this 4 stars. Where's the 5th star you ask? Well, it got lost somewhere in a plot that sometimes lacked direction. This book is more for an adult and sophisticated audience than for leisure reading so it gets an IT Book Ranking of On The Shelf. Overall a good read! (less)

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Apr 03, 2011 Matthew Miller rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Olga Grushin is a beautiful writer. I swear sometimes I'm reading poetry as she weaves a dream-like narrative, an enthralling dream-like narrative where the engine of the plot is waiting in line.

That's right, the story revolves around a family and their wait in a line. The story, set in a fictionalized Soviet Union, follows the lives of a family who take turns waiting in line for a ticket to a concert by Igor Selinsky, a famed Russian composer who emigrated to the West instead of composing in t...more Olga Grushin is a beautiful writer. I swear sometimes I'm reading poetry as she weaves a dream-like narrative, an enthralling dream-like narrative where the engine of the plot is waiting in line.

That's right, the story revolves around a family and their wait in a line. The story, set in a fictionalized Soviet Union, follows the lives of a family who take turns waiting in line for a ticket to a concert by Igor Selinsky, a famed Russian composer who emigrated to the West instead of composing in the motherland. They wait day and night. They wait in all seasons. They wait on behalf of others, they wait on behalf of themselves, they wait for reasons they tell to others, and they wait for reasons they keep entirely to themselves.

And that is where the book grows. The family's secrets. The grandmother, who won't talk to the family, has a secret past. The father, Sergei, has a secret love. Mother Anna secretly tries to pull her marriage back together. Alexander, a 17 year old son, gets involved with underground smuggling and gambling.

Most interesting is how these desires, nursed in secrecy, all grow into obsessions. In a most interesting section of the novel, Grushin enters the minds of each character as they imagine what will happen when they get their hands on the ticket. The ticket, a single concert ticket, grows in importance as the days, months, and years of waiting for it pass, until the ticket itself seems to be the single item to solve all of the problems they've let grow for years upon years.

But in the end, all the characters have to come to realize what Sergei knew in their very beginning of his life... "Half asleep, he wondered whether that might not have been his happiest day ever, the last, perfect day swelling with the immensity of his secret intent, secret creation - the day before everything changed - the day before he realized, for the first time, yet with absolute finality, just how small his private immensity really was when measured against that other vast, dark, impersonal immensity, call it God, or history, or simply life."

And does God, or history, or simply life catch up with this simple Russian family. As the secrets unravel, as private immensities come tumbling down, as choices, accidents, and coincidences crash together, the family ends up coming through something sadly beautiful, all while they wait.(less)

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Jan 02, 2013 notgettingenough rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: russian, modern-lit

I guess like others here, my first thought was not as good as...that's the trouble with creating a perfect work of art, one is haunted by it forever.

May I say this is 'not as good' but still SO, SO very good, that we are talking about giving this nine stars out of five, where we might have given Sukhanov ten.

Maybe the very big difference, the thing that makes one intuitively side with Sukhanov is that this novel has no one great character, rather, a group share centre stage equally. If you ask...more

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Jul 10, 2011 Sherelyn Ernst rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is well worth reading. Grushin bases her plot premise on an actual event and then creates Russian life and the misery of poverty, oppression, and hopelessness. She does such a good job of evoking that in the first half, I was a bit dismayed but came to really like the book as it progressed. The plot itself, based on a group of Russians waiting in line for a year to buy tickets to a concert that might or might not take place, is novel, to say the least. Nonetheless, by the time she finishes,...more

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Jun 21, 2011 Sooz rated it 4 of 5 stars

a man. a woman. their son. her mother. they share an apartment together in Lenningrad yet they are strangers to each other and live very lonely isolated lives. slowly and with great care, Grushin draws them out, fills them in, gives them dimension and the reader begins to see the spark of longing inside each of them that they do not share with anyone else. the times and the place were such that it was not safe to share your fears, your desires, your joys, your sorrows. to speak to openly was to...more a man. a woman. their son. her mother. they share an apartment together in Lenningrad yet they are strangers to each other and live very lonely isolated lives. slowly and with great care, Grushin draws them out, fills them in, gives them dimension and the reader begins to see the spark of longing inside each of them that they do not share with anyone else. the times and the place were such that it was not safe to share your fears, your desires, your joys, your sorrows. to speak to openly was to risk being ostracized at the very least. imprisioned or executed if you were not so lucky. Grushin perfectly illustrates what happens to the human spirit under those conditions. and lining up in Russia -an everyday occurence- illustrates the abuse of power in a totaltarian society. the bureaucract controls distribution. the people wait. and they hope.

but The Line is a story of transformation and redemption. i love this theme - at least i do when it is well done - and Grushin does it beautifully. her story is so subtle, so carely woven and it is so believable.

each of these characters, through their attachment to the music of Igor Stavinsky -or atleast to their attachment to the perceived changes a ticket to his concert will spark- through their encounters on the line, through their most selfish and most generous thoughts, through mistakes and misunderstandings, each awakens as if from a sleep-walking state. i love this passage towards the end of the book by the man:

....three people lived alongside him, had lived alongside him for decades - his wife, his son, his mother-in-law, whom he once, not long ago, believed he knew so well he was bored by them - and yet he now felt a terrible, heartbreaking certainty that he had somehow missed them completley, overlooked something vital about them, and by doing so, wasted years of possible happiness.

i love Grushin's writing style and her ability to capture all our shared human frailty as we traverse through the random curious chance of life.

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Apr 22, 2010 Jaci rated it 4 of 5 stars

The characters (Russian) are all waiting in the same line, supposedly for tickets to a performance by Selinksy. The relationships interweave as the wait progresses through an entire year. Beautifully written. Definitely a commentary on how well we know the people with whom we spend the most time.

p.145: “All I’m saying is, it’s a very efficient way of disposing of people’s time, don’t you see? Thousands of us, some waiting for stockings, others for symphonies….What if all of this is just a means...more

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May 27, 2010 Lauren Albert rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

The line represents hope. The people in this unnamed city live grim lives, constantly afraid, watching people being taken away for almost any reason. Though they don't always know what they are waiting on line for, and even when they do, they are always uncertain whether they will be one of the lucky ones to get it, it gives them hope. A community of sorts develops from the line since they all share the same hopes and fears. The focus of the novel is on one particular family, each member of whic...more

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Dec 18, 2011 Janny rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2011, leesclub, english-reading

The Concert Ticket was my bookclubs pick for this month. I couldn't remember if I voted for this title but my sent email box told me I did. Why? I really can't remember. Maybe the short description I've been reading on bol.com or all the great reviews in several newspapers. However, It's not my kind of book at all. The Concert Ticket reminds me of "Waiting for Godot" but with less humor.

The language is brilliant but nothing happens. Four people in a family, all waiting in line for a kiosk. Not k...more

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Nov 09, 2010 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars

nothing amazing happens in this book. no great adventures, arguably no great conclusions. just a great study of life. a line creates the opportunity for connections to form between unlikely souls. grushin artfully intersects history and relationships in this simple story. in the hands of a lesser writer, this could have been boring, pointless. but the characters are authentic, living a stark life in stark times, and the line, endless as it seems, adds a richness and depth to their lives... a ple...more

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Mar 04, 2012 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Imagine standing in line for a year. You begin standing in line without even knowing why. Without even knowing what is going to be sold and when it is going to go on sale. What is for sale are tickets to the concert of a lifetime, a long exiled composer is returning to the motherland to conduct a performance of his last and greatest symphony, a symphony that portrays the entire history of humanity. While standing in line you learn things about your neighbors, your family, yourself, and find that...more

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Jan 08, 2012 Naomi rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you are looking for a fast-paced, read-on-the-treadmill book, this is not the one for you, which is fitting, given the plot. This book spans the time frame of a year during which what seems like an entire city in an unnamed country (obviously USSR)waits in line at a dingy, run-down kiosk for something unnamed and unknown. It is rumored that at some point, tickets will go on sale from this kiosk for the concert of an exiled, famous composer, Igor Fyodorovitch Selinski. If this seems an intenti...more If you are looking for a fast-paced, read-on-the-treadmill book, this is not the one for you, which is fitting, given the plot. This book spans the time frame of a year during which what seems like an entire city in an unnamed country (obviously USSR)waits in line at a dingy, run-down kiosk for something unnamed and unknown. It is rumored that at some point, tickets will go on sale from this kiosk for the concert of an exiled, famous composer, Igor Fyodorovitch Selinski. If this seems an intentional nod to Igor Fyodorovitch Stravinski, it is indeed. I found the conceit of this book wildly original, and I was impressed with the run of Grushin's imagination until I found out that the novel was based on an actual event and that people in the Soviet Union did wait in line--in shifts, day and night--to purchase tickets for a Stravinski concert. Here is what Grushin says in her historical note:
"The line for tickets began a year before the performance and evolved into a unique
and complex social system, with people working together and taking turns in line."
So evolves Grushin's novel, its plot unwinding at the snail's pace of a line creeping forward toward an unknown destination. This is not to say that the novel is in any way plodding or that I was impatient for the action to kick into a faster gear. Grushin populates her novel with a brilliantly developed cast of characters whose lives, it turns out, are much more intertwined then is evident on the surface. It is these unraveling layers of connections, like the skin of an onion, that give the book its appeal and kept me turning pages. And then there is Grushin's style: a breathtakingly lyrical mix of her Russian heritage and James Joyce's stream of consciousness flowing narration. I did find, however, that at times--especially toward the end of the novel--her lyricism bled over into hyperbole, causing skim-mode to briefly kick in.

THE LINE is a book about connections. It is a book in which one waits and waits and waits, only to discover that what is indeed important is what is revealed in small moments along the way. Although the characters in this book are all big dreamers, most of their dreams have been destroyed or hopelessly silenced by the government since "The Change."But it is inside the moments in which life appears to be suspended, one learns, that the uplifting treasures of ordinary existence are unearthed, Grushin seems to say. It is these moments that define us, as they define the sparkling pages of THE LINE.

My one(less)

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Aug 09, 2011 Meena rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Page 302:
‘And as the light slowly ripened in the sky, there welled inside him a tightness, a knot, and he thought, here in this city, which he once, not long ago, believed so entirely devoid of surprises, on the city's dim outskirts, where centuries before wolves had roamed through snowed-in villages and where now grim apartment buildings grew along meandering, ill-lit streets, in an apartment in one of these buildings, in the three rooms of the apartment, three people lived alongside him, had l...more

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Mar 25, 2011 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Lisa by: A Common Reader (Tom)

Shelves: russia

The Concert Ticket, by Olga Grushin, is the most poignant book I’ve read for a long time. This story of loss and desire is set in an unnamed Russian city after what is euphemistically called The Change, when colour and life leached out of the city, and grim repression took its place.

The story begins in Winter, as Anna is making her way home from work. She hears that a queue is forming at one of the city’s kiosks and hastens to join it – in a city of endless shortages, it will be worth queuing fo...more

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Feb 05, 2012 Edward rated it 4 of 5 stars

After reading Grushin's first novel, THE DREAM LIFE OF SUKHANOV, I was curious to see what of a follow-up effort she'd have. On the whole, it's very good. Its setting is similar, a Soviet city sometime during the middle of the 20th century, and while it expresses some of the same frustrations of unfillment as SUKHANOV, its characters have known none of his success. Their lives, that of a three generational family, a grandmother,two parents, and a teenage son, are unrelentingly bleak.

What gives t...more After reading Grushin's first novel, THE DREAM LIFE OF SUKHANOV, I was curious to see what of a follow-up effort she'd have. On the whole, it's very good. Its setting is similar, a Soviet city sometime during the middle of the 20th century, and while it expresses some of the same frustrations of unfillment as SUKHANOV, its characters have known none of his success. Their lives, that of a three generational family, a grandmother,two parents, and a teenage son, are unrelentingly bleak.

What gives them hope, though, is "the line" of people waiting for a kiosk to open. It is supposed to have some concert tickets for sale, a concert featuring a return to Russia of Igor Selensky (based, apparently on Igor Stravinski, who spent 50 years of his life living in exile, but did finally return to Russia and give a concert in l962). It is this historical incident that is the basis for this novel. The father, a tuba player, feels that attendance at concert will give him an "hour of happiness", part of his escape, also involving another women that he almost has an affair with. His wife dreams of a ticket to give to her mother who used to be a dancer and dreams of her past youthful glories. The son finds his classes sterile and boring and takes to hanging out on the streets. His involvement with "the line" is to get a ticket to give to a friend of his.

All the members of this family are leading solitary and secret lives. They put up with one another but fail to really communicate their frustrations, partly because the deadening routine of their lives involves living with the others, and to express their daily tedium would be to hurt the others. All feel that their life is one in which "nothing ever happens" and the "line" represents an artistic escape, even if only temporary and vicarious. Of course, the ticket to the concert remains mostly illusory, based on rumor and uncertainty, all of which captures the feel of Soviet life. It's highly uncertain whether Selensky would actually return to his homeland and give a concert, and so the question is raised whether people need something to look forward to, even if it never materializes.

The ending of this novel, though, is surprisingly upbeat as each of the characters, in their own way, comes to realize that they were placing too much hope in this mythical ticket that woujld make them happy Happiness, what there is of it, comes from a final and hard-earned empathy with the other members of their family.
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Aug 21, 2011 Ariel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Excellent book! It really captures the Russian spirit, as cynical and paranoid as it is, yet very much infused by the hope that if you just wait and put up with suffering a bit longer that something great can occur. You really get to see each member of the family in their separate social spheres and with their own individual relationships with others in the line at various times over the course of the year -- and each with his/her own perspective and hope. It is based on the real visit of Stravi...more

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Feb 26, 2012 Grace rated it 1 of 5 stars

This was so bleak and dispiriting. People endlessly waiting in line for something - they don't even know what, but just the act of waiting in line gives them hope and something to think about. The kiosk selling whatever never opens. So they wait and wait. Very well written, the aura of big city Russia as a grey depressed cement filled place seeped through every page. I like happy endings, so this was not for me.

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Sep 12, 2011 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Annie and other Russophiles

Recommended to Sarah by: Genevieve

It took a few dozen pages before I was totally sold, and then there was this moment, this ohmigod moment, and there was no going back. I'm not the first to say "Oh, so very Chekhovian!" but it's true, and that's a good thing. The frustration, lack of effective communication, the yearning, the hope for absolutely no good reason... it's so, so Russian. So, so good. Oh, and Ms. Grushin is one HELL of a writer.

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Jun 19, 2010 Jackie rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is loosly based on Stravinsky's famous 1962 return to perforn in Leningrad after a long period of exile.
The focus is on one family's experience with a one year wait for tickets. These are people living lives of quiet unexpresed despair.
Grushin displays the gift of desccriptive language to delve into the emotional and physical state of her characters.
A Wonderful book

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May 10, 2010 Ruthie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Based on a true event in the former Soviet Union. A kiosk appears. No one is sure what will be sold from this kiosk, but a line forms nonetheless. Rumours abound, friendships begin, a family starts to fall apart, lives are changed, all while waiting in line. The author does an amazing job of spinning this tale, taking us in different directions, all of which intersect!

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Apr 01, 2011 Drucifer rated it 3 of 5 stars

Enjoyed the conceit, the atmosphere, the characters, and the story. What I didn't enjoy was Grushin's overwrought style. Too much pointless description and poeticism stretched to the point of meaninglessness. By the end I was beating my head against the wall, wondering why Grushin can't just call a spade a spade.

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Jul 23, 2011 Kathleen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: russia

I liked this book very much. I found myself wanting to read parts of it aloud because the language was so beautiful. Based on the real story of Stravinsky returning to Soviet Russia for a single concert, this fictional take is the story of the ordinary citizens who create a line for tickets that persists for a year. Wonderful.

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Jul 04, 2011 Mrybrown rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book. The writing is rich--practically every page has a line worth stealing. Here's one of my favorites:

"It was so quiet he imagined he heard the crunch of snow under the feet of a crow crossing the dusky yard, the small collapse of dampened plaster in the church at their backs."

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Jun 01, 2010 Mel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Let's not s*^% ourselves my friends, we're all standing in line for some unpromised happiness at the end instead of living in the moment. How little we know of those people who surround us everyday in that line of living. Stop wishing for what's ahead.

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Apr 14, 2013 Gael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Goodreads app just deleted my review before I could save it.

Anyway, I'm not going to rewrite it.

Thoroughly enjoyed this subtle drama of family and community in the queue for concert tickets in a fictionalized 20th century Russian city.

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Oct 17, 2012 Amy rated it 5 of 5 stars

A wonderful extended metaphor about life and looking forward to what comes after life. Hope and despair, joy and pain, all beautifully told in such wonderful language. Grushin has an amazing ability to describe something in terms that are concrete yet poetic. Beautifully written book, and I recommend it for people of all faiths.

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May 24, 2011 Margaret rated it 3 of 5 stars

Hard to get into this book but by the time I got to the last half it was hard to put down with all its twists and turns. Depressing ending after such a buildup. I wasn't overly impressed by Grushin's over the top descriptions, way too overdone.

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About Olga Grushin

Olga Grushin is the author of The Dream Life of Sukhanov (2006) and The Line (to be published April 2010), as well as short stories, literary criticism, essays, and other works. She has been awarded the 2007 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and named one of the Best Young American Novelists by Granta magazine; her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, Granta,...more

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Quotes from The Line: A Novel

“Half asleep, he wondered whether that might not have been his happiest day ever, the last, perfect day swelling with the immensity of his secret intent, secret creation—the day before everything changed—the day before he realized, for the first time, yet with absolute finality, just how small his private immensity really was when measured against that other vast, dark, impersonal immensity, call it God, or history, or simply life.” — 2 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7163090-the-line?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1291013992l/7163090.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7163090-the-line?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Line by Olga Grushin[/url]

The Line

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