A couple of weeks ago, at Madison’s annual Ukrainian Fest, I picked up a copy of The Harvest Keeper, autographed by the author, Tammy Borden.

What a great, fortuitous find! It’s a wonderful book.

Everybody today knows the misery being inflicted on Ukraine by our Russian dictator du jour, Vladimir Putin. Not everyone may be aware of the MILLIONS of deaths inflicted by the Soviet Communists under Joseph Stalin in the 1930s. It’s a tale of barbarous inhumanity and suffering, a lingering scar on the Ukrainian psyche.  

Borden’s book, The Harvest Keeper, tells that story. Millions starved to death on account of Stalin’s social and agricultural policies—forced collectivization of agriculture and the seizure of crops from the peasants who raised them. The famine came to be called the Holodomor, a Ukrainian word that simply means “death by hunger” but carries a strong whiff of genocide. 

Was starvation a deliberate tool to destroy the Ukrainian people and prevent Ukraine from asserting its independence? What if it was merely a result of stupid policies enforced by callous brutality? What would be the practical difference?

Historians may argue about such questions, but Tammy Borden does something better: She shows us the results in the lives and deaths of the people who experienced it. The Harvest Keeper is a fictionalized yet accurate narrative of Borden’s grandmother, Amalia Tomtschik, and her farming family. 

This is the best kind of historical fiction, at once sweeping and intimate. It gives an up-close view of horrific events, with an eye to small details that were passed down in family stories. The travails of the fictional Amalia closely depict the life of the real Amalia. Her epic endurance and survival are guaranteed to give the reader an equal mix of anxiety and satisfaction, as well as righteous indignation toward the brutal Stalinist regime.

I highly recommend this book, both for historical content and literary power. Well done, Tammy Borden!

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer