The True Memoirs of Little K

The True Memoirs of Little K

California Book Award, finalist

One of Oprah Book Club’s 10 Fantastic Books for fall 2010

Historical Novel Review, Editors’ Choice

Foreign Rights sold to Italy, Spain, Holland, Poland, France, Serbia

Exiled in Paris, tiny, one-hundred-year-old Mathilde Kschessinska sits down to write her memoirs before all that she believes to be true is forgotten. A lifetime ago, she was the vain, ambitious, impossibly charming prima ballerina assoluta of the tsar’s Russian Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg. Now, as she looks back on her tumultuous life, she can still recall every slight she ever suffered, every conquest she ever made.

Kschessinka’s riveting storytelling soon thrusts us into a world lost to time: that great intersection of the Russian court and the Russian theater. Before the revolution, Kschessinska dominated that world as the greatest dancer of her age. At seventeen, her crisp, scything technique made her a star. So did her romance with the tsarevich Nicholas Romanov, soon to be Nicholas II. It was customary for grand dukes and sons of tsars to draw their mistresses from the ranks of the ballet, but it was not customary for them to fall in love.

The affair could not endure: when Nicholas ascended to the throne as tsar, he was forced to give up his mistress, and Kschessinska turned for consolation to his cousins, two grand dukes with whom she formed an infamous ménage à trois. But when Nicholas’s marriage to Alexandra wavered after she produced girl after girl, he came once again to visit his Little K. As the tsar’s empire—one that once made up a third of the world—began its fatal crumble, Kschessinka’s devotion to the imperial family would be tested in ways she could never have foreseen.

In Adrienne Sharp’s magnificently imagined novel, the last days of the three-hundred-year-old Romanov empire are relived. Through Kschessinska’s memories of her own triumphs and defeats, we witness the stories that changed history: the seething beginnings of revolution, the blindness of the doomed court, the end of a grand, decadent way of life that belonged to the nineteenth century. Based on fact, The True Memoirs of Little K is historical fiction as it’s meant to be written: passionately eventful, crammed with authentic detail, and alive with emotions that resonate still.

“I tore through this delectable book like a box of elegantly crafted chocolates. Even now, I keep riffling though the crumpled gold wrappers, wishing there was more.  A fascinating, carefully researched and intricately rendered portrait of the last tsar and his clever, talented and wildly ambitious mistress, prima ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska. Bravo, Little K.” —Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint It Black

“This novel is a rare and rich pleasure, full of exquisite details of the Russian imperial court, of ballet, of diamonds, of intricate love affairs backstage in theaters and palaces in a vanished world.”  —Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Young Stalin and Sashenka

“Mistress of grand dukes and Russia’s last tsar, Mathilde Kschessinska was the fabled prima ballerina assoluta of St. Petersburg’s Maryinsky Ballet during the Empire’s last decades. In The True Memoirs of Little K, novelist Adrienne Sharp reveals the passion, greed, and lust for life behind the fairy tale of the ballerina’s real memoirs, and the secret about her son’s paternity that it’s easy to believe just might be true.” —Lynn Garafola, author of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes

“Brilliant… When reporting on a time, place, and disappearing way of life, especially with her sumptuous, often loving descriptions of Russian dance and culture, Kschessinka emerges as the ultimate truth-teller.  If only we’d had history teachers this knowledgeable – and this much fun.”  –Sara Nelson, O, The Oprah Magazine

“Adrienne Sharp has taken equal parts truth and conjecture, and put spinning at the center of her story a charming, willful, and, at times, unreliable narrator. Mala’s memoir fascinates… The novelist, having trained with New York’s Harkness Ballet, thrills us with her asides…” –Cleveland Plain Dealer 

“A riveting historical tale…with beautifully detailed, often conversational language, Sharp describes a lost world, pre-revolution Saint Petersburg.” –Christian Science Monitor

“Sit back and be told a story, the rich and fantastic memoirs of 99-year-old Mathilde Kschessinska, ballerina with the Russian Imperial Ballet, mistress to tsars and grand dukes… Sharp tells her story in an almost magical way — the reader dissolves into another time and place.”  –Susan Salter Reynolds, The Los Angeles Times

“Sharp brings the last days of the Romanov empire to fascinating, sexy light through the eyes of Mathilde (“Little K”)” –Marie Claire

“[Adrienne Sharp] has channeled the spirit of Little K, who did indeed live until December 1971. She has brilliantly captured the last years in the doomed world of Imperial Russia. Tsarist society invited its fate. Read these pages and shiver, but not from the cold.” —The Baton Rouge Advocate

“[The True Memoirs of Little K] is rich with historical detail, describing the decadent excesses of the Russian nobility, the intrigue of the theater, and the paralysis of Russia’s rulers in their waning days of power. Sharp sweeps us into another place and time, blending fact and fiction into an engrossing tale of love, loss and history.” —The Wichita Eagle

“Sharp impressively conjures the grand life of Mathilde Kschessinka, Russian prima ballerina and mistress of Czar Nicholas II, in her sweeping third novel…. She writes movingly of Russian dance… Kschessinka’s story is an unrelenting thrill ride and chockfull of the stuff that historical fiction buffs adore:  larger than life characters, epic change, grand settings, and lusty plotting.”  –Publishers Weekly

“Sharp’s knowledge of ballet and her lush, descriptive writing give depth and resonance to this imagined history. ”  –Kirkus

“Adrienne Sharp has written a beautiful novel that brings the era of pre-revolutionary Russia to life. Not only is this a fascinating story that keeps the reader turning pages to find out what happens next, but also the language in which it is written is absolutely beautiful. For lovers of historical fiction, “The True Memoirs of Little K” is a must-read.—Baltimore Jewish Times

The sparkling narrative offers a colorful account of the backstage saga of the Russian ballet, and also a front row seat to the drama of the Russian revolution… Using thorough research and a captivating narrator, author Adrienne Sharp conjures both the grandeur and collapse of tzarist Russia. The 19th century world has long disappeared. Yet Little K endures, seemingly by virtue of her vain ambition and by the determined voice that enlivens the events recalled in this jewel of a book. –Jewish Book World

Adrienne Sharp sets her novel, The True Memoirs of Little K, in turn-of-the-20th-century St. Petersburg, where a Russian prima ballerina becomes mistress to the aristocrat who will be Czar Nicholas II. Backstage drama, court intrigue, and political revolution drive Sharp’s sweeping tale.—National Geographic Traveler

“Sharp artfully evokes the extravagantly decadent twilight of Tsarist Russia in this dazzling fictional memoir. Secrets, scandals, and suspense steeped in authentic period detail provide a sumptuous feast for historical-fiction fans.” — Booklist

These fictional memoirs, based on historical fact, describe the lavish lives of the Russian imperial family and the theatrical personalities of St. Petersburg’s ballerinas who served at their pleasure in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Adrienne Sharp understands the devotion to perfection that drives successful dancers because she was a ballerina herself. The True Memoirs of Little K is an example of her attention to detail, shown by her extensive research and grasp of the history of this period. This book is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in Tsar Nicholas II, the decline of the Russian empire or the history of Russian ballet, as well as lovers of historical fiction.—Historical Novel Review