The Exiled Heart

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In 1965, Cherry, an American novelist and poet ( My Life and Dr. Joyce Brothers) , met Imant Kalman, a married, Latvian composer, in a Moscow hotel lobby and fell in love at first sight. Their romance lasted for almost 25 years, but Communist bureaucracy and intimidation effectively kept them apart and prevented their marriage. Cherry charts the frustrations of their long-distance courtship, nourished chiefly by communications smuggled out of the Soviet Union and by glimmers of hope for the finalization of Imant's divorce. She describes their reunions, one in 1975, another in the late '80s; attests to her growing appreciation of Latvian culture; and accepts Kalman's marriage to another woman. The memoir drifts into philosophic and poetic inquiries that readers will find less wrenching than the tortuous twists of Cherry's abortive love affair. (Apr.)

Library Journal

Cherry describes her two short visits to the Soviet Union in 1965 and 1975, her relationship with Imant Kalnin, a Latvian composer, and her subsequent unsuccessful five-year struggle with duplicitous Soviet officials, who intercepted most of the couple's letters, to be allowed to return to Latvia to marry Kalnin. This is a moving story of lovers separated by politics and bureaucracy that will appeal to many readers, but Cherry's habit of describing a country she has not seen since 1975 in the present tense seems unfair reporting, and her extremely bitter tone is somewhat off-putting. Moreover, much of the writing is embarrassingly self-indulgent and cliched, and, in the meditative sections on topics like love and pain, incomprehensible.--Judy Mimken, Cardi nal Stritch Coll., Milwaukee

Booknews

The authors argue that much of the distress of modern life is due to a mismatch between social demands and human genes that evolved in a tribal hunting-and-gathering context. They suggest how psychotherapy can help us get used to it. A deeply personal account by poet and novelist Cherry of her long- distance love affair with Latvian composer Imant Kalnin, and their struggle to marry against the opposition of Soviet bureaucracy. Consistent with western views of the current events in the Baltics. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)