BRIEF SYNOPSIS of “TANYA”  

Genre                                  Historical Romance

Working Title                     Tanya

Subtitle                               A Small Victorious War.

Word length                        160,000

       The novel traces the complicated relationship between the protagonists in the context of land and sea battles between the Russians and the Japanese in the 1904/5 war that progressively humiliate and weaken the Tsarist regime. 
Tanya, a twenty-five-year-old surgeon struggles with the prejudice against women in her profession. She has recurring nightmares and finds it difficult to deal with her anxieties about thunderstorms and intimacy with men. She is attracted to Sasha, a twenty-six-year-old career army officer leading a carefree life in St. Petersburg. They fall in love but her emotional problems drive him into a relationship with Marianne, a saloon owner in Manchuria. 
       When the war breaks out, Tanya seizes the opportunity to work as a Red Cross field surgeon in the Far East. A severe bombardment of Port Arthur wounds Marianne and Tanya saves her life.   
       The Russians suffer a series of defeats and towards the end of the war, Sasha and his closest friend Boris are seriously wounded. Sasha recovers but the brain concussion changes his behaviour. When he hears of his friend’s death, he blames Tanya for not revealing this earlier. He is also demoralised by the inept regime, which sues for peace. Tanya is devastated by Sasha’s rejection of her.      
She decides to seek psychoanalytic help and sails to New York to consult her colleague who studied with her in Vienna under Freud. Tanya’s emotional problems are resolved while Sasha acts as an adviser to the Russian delegation at the Rhode Island Peace Conference. The lovers reconcile and decide to return home to face the uncertain future of the Russian state.

FULL SYNOPSIS OF “TANYA” 

     In 1902 Tanya is a twenty-five year old Russian woman who becomes an orphan on her fourth birthday when her father dies in mysterious circumstances. Adopted by a wealthy childless noble family she is brought up as their own. Recurring nightmares, thunderstorm phobia and the revulsion to intimate physical contact with men torment her. While fighting the demons of unreason in her soul, she overcomes the society’s prejudices and graduate as a doctor of medicine from Vienna University.
     Sasha is a twenty-six year old army Lieutenant from a noble and military family of some distinction. He is a typical elite career officer, carefree and assured of his future, leading the life of an impressive man about town.    
     The protagonists meet at a soiree and are instantly attracted to each other. Circumstances throw them together on two more occasions. Tanya is captivated by his good looks and natural charm, but immediately torn between her powerful attraction to him and her deep seated inhibitions. Sasha is smitten by her beauty and intellect and falls in love with her. He burns with a desire to capture her heart, but is put off by her apparent aloofness.
     The novel weaves the heroes’ pursuits and struggles into the historic period which humiliates and weakens Imperial Russia to a point from which she will be unable to recover. Parallel to the development of the love story, momentous events propelled the Russian Empire into the disastrous war with Japan and to its eventual defeat, which established the beginning of a new era of the world’s geopolitics. The story’s heroes and Russia change fundamentally through the experiences of the events of those years. 
     Throughout the novel there is an undercurrent of tension on several levels. Tanya struggles with her internal devils which interfere with the fulfilment of her love for Sasha. Her battle to secure professional recognition is thwarted by the puzzling but persistent vendetta by her boss, the Chief Surgeon, who is determined to destroy her both professionally and personally. The troubling effects of an unjust regime and the progressive shattering of the grand image of her country which is now falling apart, contribute to the unceasing turmoil in Tanya’s mind. She and Russia seem to be moving headlong to disaster of shattering proportions.
     This is a story of triumph of human spirit and steely determination over adversity. Tanya solves her problems by single-minded focusing on her goals and a firm belief that in the end solutions will be found against seemingly impossible odds. She achieves this in both professional and personal sense and in the process unlocks her true sensitive and sensuous personality. The final revelation is a classic Freudian solution which assembles all the jigsaw pieces into a cohesive picture. 
      Major scenes include: the emotionality and the atmosphere of the Russian Orthodox Easter Mass, Tanya being told of the horrors of pogroms in Kishenev, several scenes describing her anguish and distressed reaction to thunderstorms, the sinking of the Russian flagship, a priest’s heroism during a retreat, the Bloody Sunday massacre in St. Petersburg, Tanya’s repulsion from Chief Surgeon’s declaration of his interest in her and his promise to destroy her because of her refusal to countenance his advances, the serious wounding of Sasha  in a battle. 
      At every stage in her efforts to acquire the necessary experience on the way to become a competent military surgeon, Tanya encounters obstacles. The society is not ready to accept a woman in that role. Along the way she comes across people who covertly or overtly discourage her efforts, and some who even go out of their way to sabotage her success. She immerses herself in dangers of war, primarily to speed up her initiation to military surgery. Privation and dangers in the war zone, continuous reverses of the Russian fortunes, disillusionment with the system and the unjust prejudices of the society she lives in, overwork and traumas in surgery, constant harassment, and an untimely personal love involvement which only adds to her problems, are all superimposed on her unsolved personal problems. These circumstances would be enough to break a stronger person, and at times it seems that she might buckle under this tremendous load. 
      The attitude of the Russian Government and the inept conduct of the war by the commanding generals progressively disenchant Sasha. Tanya’s behaviour and her feeling for him puzzle him but the strength of his love for her fills him with patience and hope. 
      Emotional lows are occasionally brightened by scenes of contentment and happiness by the heroes, but they are few and soon turn to darker moods of despair.
      The continuous reverses of the Russian forces in Manchuria culminate with the loss at Mukden, where Sasha is seriously wounded and his friends killed. Sasha survives but the head wound affects his mental condition. He holds Tanya responsible for not telling him earlier about the death of his friends. Tanya is hurt and decides to go to America, seeking psychoanalytic help for her mental problems. For Tanya, this is the nadir of despair. It coincides with Russia losing the major naval battle which annihilates her fleet, leaving the country humiliated.
      The turning moment in the story occurs at one of the psychoanalytic session when Dr. Stein interprets her dreams and brings out Tanya’s repressed childhood memories. The devils of unreason are banished and only one final hurdle remains to be negotiated. In Portsmouth the Peace Treaty between Russia and Japan is signed, and Tanya and Sasha are reunited in New York. The final emotional love scene, where Tanya’s sensuality explodes, is a surprise to both of them. They now agree that nothing can stand between them and their happiness. They decide to return to Russia, which never recovers from the setbacks in that war. 

BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF “FREE TO SLAVE”

Genre                                  Popular Fiction

Working Title                     Free to Slave

Subtitle                               For a fistful of liras.

Word length                        80,000

     Mara, who has to summon all her courage and cunning to survive the captivity of the present-day prostitution slavery in Europe, is the narrator of the story. The novel explores the nature of the present day prostitution slave trade in Europe, the effect it has on the women, and the relationships between them and their captors and clients.
     Mara is a sexually precocious girl growing up in poverty in a provincial Russian town. Her father is an amiable drunk and her mother a frustrated and cold nag. As a distraction to her misery, Mara develops a lesbian relationship with a schoolmate. Moving to Moscow, she falls in love with an ice-hockey hero, which causes her more disappointments and betrayal. 
     Attractive job offers in Italy lure her and other young girls, only to fall prey on arrival to unscrupulous Mafiosi who deprive them of their freedom, abuse them physically and sexually, and force them to work as prostitutes.  
     Mara and two of her closest friends escape but are betrayed and returned to slavery. Her new captor inflicts more punishment on her and continues to force her to service local clientele, ranging from tradesmen and politicians to priests and policemen. When it seems that there is no prospect of freedom, and she contemplates suicide, help comes from a most unexpected quarter and she is finally free of bondage. 

FULL SYNOPSIS OF “FREE TO SLAVE” 

       Mara, a precautious and cheeky Russian girl grows up in a provincial town in Russia. As a defence mechanism to squalid conditions in the country and a poor and dysfunctional home, she develops a self-centred sexuality. By the time she is twenty, she would have experienced the full range of sexual experiences, including self-exploration of her body at the age of three, a lesbian relationship with her best friend at the age of thirteen and an affair with a young ice-hockey hero. Her lesbian friend seduces Mara’s boyfriend as an attempt to win her back, culminating in Mara’s complete disillusionment with her life in Russia. She applies to an ad for a waitressing job in Italy and is taken there by people who pretend to be travel guides but who are in fact a part of a gangster ring.
     On the way to Italy Mara forms a friendship with Natasha, a street-smart daughter of a single mother with loose morals. The girls, together with many others, discover too late that they are a part of a sinister plot of sexual exploitation. When the gang smuggles the girls into Italy, the boat they are in capsizes and Natasha saves Mara from drowning. 
     Mara is exposed to the full range of horror, when she is sold to a ruthless Albanian who beats her up, rapes her, confiscates her passport and enslaves her in his brothel in Bari. The girls are deprived of their liberty and forced to work as prostitutes, enriching the owner. Those who rebel are repeatedly bashed and raped and even murdered. 
     Mara, Natasha and other girls service the local clientele of all walks of life and even monks and policemen. Mara cultivates a besotted monk and engineers an escape plan. The monk decides to leave the convent and believes Mara will marry him, but an indiscretion on his part alerts the police, who foil the plot. Instead of being freed, the girls are raped by the corrupt policemen and sold back to slavery to another slave-owner. 
     Mara has reached the lowest point in her life and just as everything seems hopeless and she contemplates suicide, help arrives from an unexpected quarter. Finally she is free but will she ever be free of the effects of her ordeal? 
     The novel is based on actual present-day practice in many European countries, where governments pay lip service but are slow to eradicate the racket in human flesh.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  

George Mallory was born in Serbia, of Russian parents but grew up in Sydney, Australia, where he graduated in Engineering (Mechanical) and Arts (Russian Literature and Psychology). Worked for many years for multinational companies, both in Sydney and in the USA. Travelled widely throughout Asia, Russia, Europe and the USA and developed interests in literary and visual arts (particularly Architecture and Music). Presently living in Sydney.
      From an early age became fascinated by Russian culture, tradition, politics and religion. From the age of six began reading the works of major Russian writers, first in original Russian, and subsequently in English, and discussed these books with parents.
      Developed love of written works as mirrors to national psyche, hence the two novels above reflect that sentiment. Has written a third novel which is now being handled by a literary agent.

 

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