For this fictional account, Schwartz has made a few important changes ... The result is an episodic reading experience that prizes discreet, intensely rendered scenes over narrative action and flow ... The Red Daughter is full of writerly noticing ... Schwartz’s portrayal of Alliluyeva is closely observed and fully realized ... The strongest and strangest part of the novel concerns Alliluyeva’s courtship with and eventual marriage to Frank Lloyd Wright’s son-in-law ... After an entertaining first half...The Red Daughter descends into something mundane: an account of adultery that feels rehashed from the works of John Updike and John Cheever.
Schwartz again demonstrates his adroitness at illustrating the troubled lives of high-profile twentieth-century women ... A perceptive exploration of identity, motherhood, and how one woman valiantly tried to shed the heavy mantle of her father’s infamous legacy.
....This lovely novel’s strength is the aching portrait of Svetlana ... Filled with historical details that enliven and ground the fictionalized elements, Schwartz’s elegant novel captures the emotion and strain of Alliluyeva’s second life in the U.S
