Nadia Comăneci emerged as a Romanian gymnastics superstar in the late 1970s, and in The Little Communist Who Never Smiled, French writer Lola Lafon blends and bends genres and styles to craft an embellished biographical novel of the Eastern European phenomenon.
Some might initially balk at the veneration with which Lafon treats her subject, but the story quickly proves winsome, its prose as gymnastic and dogged as the young heroine driving it. Comăneci's reign coincided with major political upheaval in her home country, and the precarious balance between world superstardom and national puppetry proves fascinating. Lafon's embroideries--a brief travelogue during her stay in Romania, imagined conversations and psychological insights--never veer into exaggeration or outlandishness, and it's this acute sense of equilibrium between fact and fiction that makes The Little Communist so distinct.
In one of the italicized bits of true, contemporary dialogue between writer and gymnast, Comăneci notes, "Back home, there was nothing to desire. But in the West, you are called on to desire constantly." Like the barrage of branding and consumerism that greets the young gymnast during her travels to North America, this book juggles a panoply of literary devices and tricks as relentless as Romania's team of Olympic athletes. With balletic grace and daring, The Little Communist earns a ten. --Linnie Greene, freelance writer