A fast interesting little novel about a young boy in Russia during the 50’s who befriends an old man and interviews him. Their conversations explain the current political situation of the county.

Well written tale with vivid characters.

DNF - This book sounds like a wonderful read, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I loved the topic idea present in the synopsis, but the book just moved too slow for my tastes.

I’m going to let the publisher’s blurb stand in for my personal plot summary on this one. It’s not that the plot is amazingly complicated or unimportant, but the plot is not really the point on this one. I’m still not sure if I liked the book or not, and when my husband asked what I was reading, I couldn’t get too much further than the title and “it’s weird.”

Similar to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, it’s a child’s eye view of historic events and figures, though the child in question is much more precocious and less innocent than the protagonist in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. It’s a bit of a niche historical fiction piece, but I can see it being a hit with the right audience.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

The writing was really good! But the story was not really something I was interested in. That's nothing against the author, just that this isn't my kind of book. I see why the author has such an impressive catalog of writings and a steady following. Thanks for the opportunity to read your book!

Published by The Overlook Press on November 10, 2020

Robert Littell has written some good spy novels, including Company and The Sisters. He’s also written some historical fiction that is less successful. Comrade Koba falls into the latter category.

Comrade Koba imagines a ten-and-a-half-year-old child named Leon Rozental whose father, a physicist, died from radiation poisoning. He’s living with his mother, a Jewish doctor, in Soviet housing. From a hidden room, he watches the NKVD arrest his mother. He later learns that she was arrested with many other Jewish doctors who are accused of conspiring to poison Stalin.

The NKVD seals shut the apartment door. Leon knows of hidden hallways that let him connect with other kids who have been effectively orphaned within the building. He also knows of a hidden tunnel that will let him leave the building unobserved to forage for food. While returning from one such trip, he notices another passageway that takes him to a basement room where he meets a grumbly old man who claims to be Stalin’s aide. As the man, who calls himself Koba, narrates his story to Leon, it quickly becomes clear to the reader that Koba bears a striking resemblance to Stalin himself. In fact, that question of identity arises so quickly that it isn’t a spoiler to mention it here.

So that’s pretty much the story. Leon listens to Koba every day and hangs out with is friends at night. Leon is a clever kid with a winning personality. Koba is Koba: unrepenting, blaming others for Soviet atrocities or blaming the victims who, in his view, had it coming. He certainly isn’t as nuanced as the book’s blurb suggests. The story is interesting and Littell’s dialog is rich and surprising, but it doesn’t add up to much. If the novel is meant to remind us that Stalin was evil and anti-Semitic . . . well, history reminds us of that.

Unlike history, the novel doesn’t ring true. A kid who wanders through tunnels accidentally encounters a Soviet dictator? Stalin secretly likes kids and wants one to write his biography? Stalin — as we learn at the end — has a sentimental side? I might have been willing to suspend my disbelief if Littell had written a meatier novel, but the rewards of Comrade Koba are too few to earn a full recommendation.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Thanks to Overlook Press for an advance Netgalley of this title, which came out yesterday Nov 10, 2020--

Robert Littell's Comrade Koba is a short novel with an incredibly intriguing premise; unfortunately, I'm not sure if the frame successfully sustains itself for a full book-length narrative.

Leon Rozental is a precocious 10-year-old, living in the famous House on the Embankment in Moscow in the 1950s; his father, a nuclear physicist, died of radiation poisoning, and his mother was arrested by the NKVD in a purge of Jewish doctors. Leon, and his group of young friends, are secretly still staying in the building together--despite the fact that all their parents are gone.

One day, while traveling through the building's tunnels, Leon discovers an old man living in an enormous dwelling. The man "Koba" claims to be a high-ranking Soviet official who is close to Comrade Stalin. Because Leon doesn't recognize the old man, Koba feels comfortable speaking with him. A majority of the book continues as a conversation between Koba and Leon--with Leon writing down Koba's words after their conversations--alongside the various adventures of Leon and the other kids in the House on the Embankment.

This premise allows Koba to be honest, maybe saying things to a young boy that he wouldn't to anyone else. We get wide ranging disquisitions on the Soviet Union and Stalinism, from two characters with hugely varying opinions and life experiences. There are fights. There are moments of genuine humor and moments of a genuinely disturbing lack of care for human life. Oh, and Koba's real name...is Joseph. Hmm.

Comrade Koba is well-written, with a clever conceit, but it starts to seem a bit repetitive and unrealistic as the book goes on. Leon is so smart and Koba trusts him so much that they both start to seem less like real characters, and more like devices created to hash out certain conversations and ideas. I do think this could have sustained itself for a short story, even a long one, but I can see the seams a little in this novel-length narrative.

Leon’s mother has been arrested by the KGB. Leon is hiding in his apartment complex, The House On the Embankment. He comes across an old man’s apartment one day. This man is heavily guarded but somehow Leon manages to meet the man and they strike up a “friendship”.

I enjoyed reading this point of view about Stalin or Koba, as he is known in this novel. It is extremely unique and interesting. I did not think the author got the children quite right though. I am not exactly sure what is missing. This story also leaves you wanting more at the end. I have mixed feelings about books which do this. However, this left enough to the imagination to determine Leon’s future.

This was not the book I expected when I started reading. I always just barely scan the blurb of a book. I saw the words Stalin and Russia and thought…GREAT… a change of pace. And this was! It was a wonderful change of pace for me. It is very well researched and rich with history. And I am a little torn with looking at Stalin the man and not Stalin the dictator. Very unique indeed.

I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.

This is a delightful little story about the horrors of revolution and war. Leon is a child prodigy who belongs to a troop of youngsters whose parents have been killed or arrested in the post-WWII Soviet Union. The author is very matter-of-fact about the atrocities these kids witness and their resilience and inventiveness in dealing with them.

The star, though, is Leon, whose parents were a physician and a nuclear physicist. In Leon's wanderings around subterranean Moscow to scrounge out the children's needs, he stumbles on a well-guarded facility that houses an irascible old man who befriends him and proceed to instruct him in revolutionary theory.

Comrade Koba is both a comedy and a tragedy. It is a very good story with a humorous twist. Thanks to NetGalley and the Overlook Press for an advance readers copy.

Leon Rosental lost his father, a nuclear physicist, in 1949. His mother was a doctor at Moscow hospital who was arrested in Stalin’s purge of Jewish doctors. At the age of ten, Leon survived with several other children who lost their parents by hiding in the apartments that had been sealed by the NKVD in the House on the Embankment, a building housing Russian officials. Traveling the tunnels below the building he finds an open door that leads to an unexplored passage. At the end is a large room where two men are competing in a game of chess. After displaying his own knowledge of the game, he is introduced to Stalin, who calls himself Comrade Koba.

Koba lives alone in a large apartment guarded by soldiers. It is a solitary existence and he welcomes Leon’s visits, where he shares tales of his life and the changes in Russia since the days of the revolution. He speaks of his time in Siberia as well as his meetings with Roosevelt and Churchill in Yalta. There are stories of Lenin and Trotsky as well as the women in his life. Leon may only be ten, but he realizes that Koba wields power and he questions the guilt of those who were swept up in the purges, including his mother and the parents of his fiends. He plays chess at an advanced level and retains the information that he reads, including the contents of his father’s physics books. It is sometimes easy to forget his age until he reminds Koba when the conversations touch adult subjects or when he spends time with the other children exploring or playing Monopoly.

Robert Littell’s novel is a fascinating look at Russia from the revolution through Stalin’s rule through his recollections. It is also a story of survival as the children find themselves without the protection or guidance of their parents. History fans will enjoy this look at Stalin’s final days and find it difficult to put this book down. I would like to thank NetGalley and Abrams Publishing for allowing my review of this book.

I received an advance reader copy of this book from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

After his father dies and his mother is arrested by the Soviet secret police, 10-year-old Leon encounters an old man who lives in the lap of luxury near the Kremlin. The man tells him his name is Koba, and is an advisor to Joseph Stalin.


Most of this book take the form of conversations between Leon and Koba which relate the lessons that life has taught Koba about war, women, Soviet politics, and several other topics. Without his parents, Leon and his friends live their lives in dread of being discovered by the secret police and facing possible death or being sentenced to a Siberian prison if discovered.

I gave Comrade Koba four stars on Goodreads. While I didn’t find it super-exciting, it did teach me a lot about Russian history and life in Russia during the early part of the 1950s. While I had suspicions about Koba’s real identity, I didn’t know for sure until consulting Google after I’d finished the book.

Comrade Koba is a story about a 10-year old boy Leon who lives in the famous House on the Embankment in Moscow - a large apartment building known for the fact that many of its famous residents were arrested during Stalin's purges in the 1930s and 40s. Leon's father was a physicist who died when one of his experiments went awry, and soon after Leon's mother gets arrested as part of the infamous "doctor's plot" -- a drummed up case against some medical professionals working in the Kremlin who were wrongly accused of plotting to kill Stalin.

Leon and several other children keep living in the secret passages of the building after their parents are taken away by the NKVD. One day, Leon has to take an underground passage into the city in order to sell one of his mother's paintings and on the way back he takes a different turn and ends up in Stalin's apartment. If you suspend your disbelief that (a) one could just wander in there, and (b) that the security officers guarding the place actually let him in, the rest of the story is pretty interesting.

During his multiple conversations with Leon, Stalin reveals facts about his childhood, his years as an underground revolutionary, facts about his relationships with his wife, children, Lenin, Trotsky, Kirov and other historic figures. I would say if you don't know much about Stalin, this is a great overview of his life and an insight into how troubled and paranoid his was for most of his life. It was especially interesting to view these encounters from the point of view of a little boy who did not know who he was speaking with. In his innocence, he says things that no one else would ever dare say to Stalin, and thus acts as a conscience of sorts for the reminiscing dictator.

5 out of 5 stars. Thank you, NetGalley, for providing an e-ARC for my review.

A short novel by spymaster Littell. If you liked the movie JO JO Rabbit you’ ll surely enjoy this quick read. Fans of Littell will enjoy his latest work.

Comrade Koba is an unusual book. It describes a series of conversations with a precocious young orphaned boy with the WWII Soviet dictator, Stalin. The boy does not know he is conversing with Stalin, but thinks he is someone very close to Stalin who helps him run the country. The point of view is the boy with a few chapters sprinkled in from the point of view of a close friend of the boy.

This is a very innovative book structure, but was a little difficult for me to accept. I found the boy a little too precocious for his own good. Nevertheless, I found myself drawn into the book and did enjoy it a great deal. If you are interested in the history of the Stalin era, you will most likely enjoy this book. For me, it was an interesting follow-up to a reading of the outstanding A Gentleman in Moscow. It evokes that same era and atmosphere. The author is quite skilled at drawing a believable portrait of the earthy Stalin, the man from peasant stock who never quite gets the magnitude of the evil he unleashed and has no comprehension of the monster that he is. The "kid" as he is known in the book is a likeable character, and the artifice that he does not know that he is speaking to the actual Stalin is entertaining and provides a great deal of suspense for the reader wondering just what happens to "the kid" and his circle of family and friends.

The book seemed quite short to me, perhaps a tribute to the tight writing and storytelling of the author. The book moves quickly and draws the reader into the story in a clever way.

I have not read any of Robert Littell's previous work. Comrade Koba shows that he knows his way around the Soviet Union, and I will try to read some of the author's previous work.

Thank you to Overlook Press and NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy of Comrade Koba. I enjoyed reading it.

For more reviews and bookish posts please visit: http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

Comrade Koba by Robert Littell is a novel in which a child, hiding in Communist Russia from the NKVD, meets an old man who is a high ranking government official, and the two strike a strange friendship. Mr. Littell is a published author and journalist who specializes in spy novels.

Leon Rozental is a Jewish kid, son of a heroic nuclear physicist who gave his life to save many, and a doctor. Leon’s problem? He is living in Stalinist Russia where the purge of Jewish doctors has begun and his mother, even though the widow of a hero, has been arrested.

Leon hides from the NKVD in secret rooms in a large building in Moscow. One day he meets an old man, Koba, who lives in the building and his a high ranking office in the Soviet government with insight into the internal workings of the bureaucracy in general, and Stalin specifically.

This book attempts to explain the Stalinist regime to ten year olds, a certain smart ten year old at that. I felt that this was a smart tool to explain to everyone what happened during Joseph Stalin’s reign and make a complicated and nuanced part of history, a bit simpler.

There are parts of Comrade Koba by Robert Littell which are far-fetched, such as a group of kids whose parents been arrested surviving in Moscow, evading the NKVD. I have had to suspend my belief in reality for far more unbelievable series of events, however, than told in this book. The book goes back and forth between Leon hiding in an empty building with his friends, whose parents have also been hiding, and his “interview” with Koba. A few chapters are told from the point of view of Isabeau, Leon’s friend, which help “sell” the story of Leon and how his friends slowly believe his outlandish adventure. Besides that Isabeau’s chapters don’t move the story along, but there aren’t many and I thought they brought in a different, valuable, perspective to the novel.

It is unclear what role Koba plays in Stalin’s government, except that he is a very high, and admired advisor. Koba, like Stalin, also came from Georgia and, like Stalin, excuses the crimes which the regime commits as a path to a greater “worker’s paradise”. It is a very interesting exercise to explain such concepts to an audience, especially if they’re ten year olds. Koba, at points, seem to be trying to convince himself of the deeds he is a part of, instead of convincing Leon. Asking question after question, Leon doesn’t let Koba get away with propaganda talks, especially when it comes to his mother (and the mothers of his friends in hiding). At times, Koba gets frustrated because there simply isn’t enough words in the world to justify these crimes.

This book was short and a very fast read, I found it interesting even though, I believe, it was not meant for my age group, but more towards that of Leon’s. I know that when I was around that age, these are the type of books I enjoyed very much.

A captivating premise about an unusual friendship between a naive boy and the old man whom is an advisor to the dictator Stalin in the backdrop of Russia's post- World War II. This book is written in series of conversations between the old man comrade Koba and the "kid" Leon. In their various conversations, they delved into philosophical topics as well as about the Communist Russia and their motivational force leading to the revolution. This story was pleasantly unexpected with unique perspectives. There were moments in the book that made me wonder if the old man was a figment of Leon's imagination. This possibility is feasible through Robert Littell's imaginative and compelling writing. Through memorable characters with the ill-tempered and enigmatic old man and the charming and irresistable "kid" Leon, it engraved an unforgettably delightful and quirky story that touched my heart.

Thank you to Net Galley and Abrams/The Overlook Press for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

From a secret room Leon watches his mother get arrested. His father was a recognized scientist who died of radiation poisoning. Leon has a small group of friends who have also lost parents and are illegally squatting in their apartments. On one of his ventures outdoors, he discovers in the underground tunnels of Moscow a door of an airplane hangar that houses an apartment upstairs. It is here he meets Comrade Koba, an advisor to Stalin, the Communist dictator, and begins an odd friendship between a grumpy, experienced old man and an intelligent, precocious ten year old. Leon “ interviews” Koba for a potential future news article if, as he says, he’s allowed to grow up. His friends listen intently to his descriptions of the visits, although one is skeptical. Leon is an endearing protagonist and Koba at times seems not so cruel and odious, merely practical. I am an admirer of Robert Littell‘s work; I find this unique perspective particularly enjoyable. As Leon listens and observes, the reader learns about Communist Russia and the leaders, motives and actions that guided the country through the revolution and its aftermath during the first half of the twentieth century.

A quickly-paced, clever little coming-of-age story set in Russia in 1953. Despite rather long passages detailing Russian history, Comrade Koba is an absorbing tale of 10 year old Leon and is structured largely as an interview between a young boy and a powerful Russian official. The novel’s subject matter is heavy at times, but Littell keeps things moving and light with the narrative being filtered through the eyes of children. Unique and thought-provoking, Comrade Koba is recommended and delivers a final act that is highly satisfying.

"From Leon's notebook," readers are gifted with a fictional look inside what might have been a relationship between a dictator and a temporarily orphaned boy in post-World War II Russia. The guarded rapport that develops between "the old man" and the "kid" blossoms into a wary friendship based on boredom, secrecy, fearlessness, trade, and possibly regret.

The "kid," Leon, is from what we might consider an upper-middle-class upbringing. His father is a nuclear physicist, and his mother is a cardiologist. We discover that Leon is simultaneously naïve yet extremely confident and wise beyond his ten years. He may be an autodidact because he taught himself "American" (the English language) and claims to understand "the quantum field model of the weak nuclear force." Still, for such a wise young man, he doesn't realize his new friend's identity. Or maybe he's an adult transferring his grown-up knowledge into the memories of his adolescent self. Is it real, or is it imagination? It's never clear, and that's part of the fun of Comrade Koba.

Until learning about and reading this novel, I wasn't familiar with author Robert Littell. Comrade Koba is fun and intriguing, and it encourages me to learn more about my Russian ancestry and the country's rich history. I look forward to reading Littell's New York Times bestseller, The Company, and catching up with his fans.

Thank you, NetGalley and The Overlook Press, for sharing the advanced reader copy with me and others. I recommend this book.

#ComradeKoba #NetGalley

Thank you to NetGalley for this copy. It has been an interesting experience.

This book. is somewhat of an enigma to me. We read about the death of his father and later the arrest of his mother. It seemed she knew that Leon would be left on his own when we learned Leon knew what and where to sell. the art from the apartment. I found it difficult to believe that children would have been successful in living on their own after their parents disappeared.

Even more unbelievable was the discovery of the flat of the older gentlemen who was involved with the government of Stalin and his access to it at will. Am I the only reader who wondered about the first names of the older man and the younger boy? Joseph and Leon. It seemed almost too much.

I

This short novel definitely presents a perspective and insight of history through a unique lens. Readers are able to learn history through the neverending curiosity of "the kid." The parallel personalities of the curious young kid and the rough natured old man is transparent and seen throughout the novel. I think this novel would be better if it was longer and better developed.