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Title:

The People's Train

Written by:

Tom Keneally 

Published by:

Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd 

Published:

November 01 2009 

Read by:

David Tredinnick 

Number of CDs / Tapes:

14 

Duration:

17 hours  

MP3 size:

 

Genre:

General

 

Available Date:

November 28 2009 

ISBN:

9781742143903 

APN / ISBN-13:

9781742143903 

BAB:

090837 

A novel adventuring between the pre-WWI Russian enclave in Brisbane and Tsarist Russia. From the author of Schindler's Ark, another tale of oppression and the triumph of determined peoples.

Artem Samsurov, a charismatic protege of Lenin and an ardent socialist, reaches sanctuary in Australia after escaping his Siberian labour camp and making a long, perilous journey via Japan. But Brisbane in 1911 turns out not to be quite the workers' paradise he was expecting, or the bickering local Russian emigres a model of brotherhood. As Artem helps organise a strike and gets dangerously entangled in the death of another exile, he discovers that corruption, repression and injustice are almost as prevalent in Brisbane as at home. Yet he finds fellow spirits in a fiery old suffragette and a distractingly attractive married woman, who undermines his belief that a revolutionary cannot spare the time for relationships. When the revolution dawns and he returns to Russia, will his ideals hold true?

Keneally’s historical novel is neatly broken in two, a structure that requires David Tredinnick to give voice to two distinct narrators. In the first half, Artem Samsurov, a Bolshevik escapee from Tsarist Russia and an intimate of Lenin, makes his way to Brisbane. There he embroils himself in the Australian labor movement, which is undone in the patriotic fervor of WWI. In the second half, Paddy Dykes, an Australian working-class journalist, accompanies his friend Samsurov back to Russia in time to witness firsthand the momentous events of October 1917. Tredinnick undertakes a convincing and enchanting Russian accent for the Samsurov section and an equally companionable Australian accent for Dykes. The voices are quite different,yet Tredinnick portrays characteristics that both men have in common: enormous zest, decency, and idealism transplanted to foreign shores. M.O.
AudioFile Magazine [Jun 10]