WEBVTT - The Last Laugh 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:06.600 A warning before we start. This episode includes discussions of suicide. 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:11.520 In one of my conversations with Svetlana's daughter, there was 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:14.960 one detail she shared about her mother that really stuck 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:19.600 with me. Olga had spent her childhood living alongside, living 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:24.160 inside her mother's trauma, and after many moves and revelations 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:28.000 and heartbreaks, that trauma was something the two of them shared. 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:32.159 But Svetlana was resilient, and she wanted to teach her 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:37.080 daughter resilience. Two. My mother would make me recite the 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:42.200 story of Scheherazade to myself as a means of telling 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:48.320 myself that things could be so much worse. The story 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:52.080 of Scheherazade comes from the classic tale One thousand and 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:56.440 one Nights. As the story goes, a Persian sultan, driven 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:59.640 into a jealous rage by his unfaithful wife, would marry 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.640 a verse gin every night and behead her in the morning. 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:06.679 When the beautiful and clever Shahrazade weds the monarch, she 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:11.520 staves off death by telling him enchanting stories Aladdin Ali 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:14.839 Baba and the Forty Thieves, Sindbad the Sailor. But each 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.520 night she stops the story before getting to the end. 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.800 If the Sultan wanted to hear the rest. He'd have 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:24.440 to spare her life until the next night, and the next, 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.920 and the next, and after one thousand and one nights 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:32.800 of bedtime story blue Balls. The Sultan, who'd fallen head 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:38.320 over heels for Shahrazad, spares her life forever. Ah, love, 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:41.880 I could be kidnapped by a king and having to 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.959 be telling him stories to keep myself alive, you know, 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:47.600 the never ending story to keep myself alive, that kind 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:52.760 of thing like we should be so lucky. Of all 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:55.800 the sagas of survival that' stet Lana could have compelled 0:01:55.800 --> 0:02:00.600 her daughter to recite, she chose Shahrazade, a woman trapped 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:04.120 by a tyrant, A woman whose power, whose very survival 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:09.720 was rooted in her ability to tell stories of Stalin's children. 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:12.960 His eldest son was killed in war at thirty six. 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:17.079 His younger son drank himself to death by forty, but 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:22.160 Svetlana lived to eighty five. She lived by telling her story. 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:26.720 Storytelling was her route to freedom, her ticket to America, 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:31.000 to financial independence, a means to gain control over and 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:37.560 make sense of her messy life. So how does that 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:42.000 Lana's story end? Did she ultimately find what she was 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:44.920 looking for. Did she ever really break free of her 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:49.880 family history, of the cycles that haunted her? Can any 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:59.600 of us? I'm Dan Katroser and this is the last 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:05.799 step episoda of sted Lana Steed Lana. You wake up 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:11.320 in the morning, you live your day, and then you 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:22.639 do it tomorrow and over and over again, and over 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:35.080 again and over again. Act one. I did it my way. 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:38.440 Sped Lana had spent the last few years trying to 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:41.600 reconnect with her family, with her roots, and find a 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:45.840 place that felt like home. Now she found herself back 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.880 to square one in Wisconsin, or more like square eight. 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:54.320 I don't know. I'm not one for numbers. Here's Rosemary, 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:58.720 you know it's It's a story that is unbelievably structured 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:03.760 because everything echoes every thing else. Spent Lana is back 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.640 in Wisconsin again. Olga is back at boarding school in 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:12.160 England again. Spent Lana's two Russian children are lost to 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:16.760 her again, and now she's alone in a hunting lodge 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:19.920 in the woods that she bought for cheap. Some newspapers 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:22.640 report that she's got fifteen hundred dollars to her name, 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.799 and when she reaches out to friends to ask for money, 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.400 a very normal communist thing to do when you need help. 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:33.520 Her American capitalist friends are embarrassed for her, and the 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.599 press has a field day. I'm looking at this one 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:40.520 clipping now where Spet's wearing eighties wire frame aviator glasses 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:46.080 with the headline Stalin's sad daughter has to beg Jesus 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:51.040 in the past, when speed Lana's been this confused, down 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:56.039 and out, overexposed, underappreciated, She's fallen back on her writing. 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.880 She's reclaimed her voice and she got rich doing it, 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:05.320 so she tries again. Steed Lana writes another book, a 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.960 memoir called A Book for Granddaughters about her time back 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:12.440 in Russia, and if you recall, stet Lana had also 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.359 written a book while living in England, a memoir called 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:19.640 The Faraway Music about her time it's Holly Esen. So 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:23.200 she's got these two books, two books that I love 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.919 so much. We built this podcast around the stories they contain, 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.520 and yet no one gives a shit about them because 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:35.599 they aren't about her father. The only interest in Svetlana 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.200 was that she was Stalin's daughter, so she wasn't talking 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:43.280 about Stalin. They weren't interested, So she decides she needs 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:47.760 help from someone with a bit more agency, and who 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:53.799 might have more agency why an agent, perhaps Steed. Lana 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:57.560 gets connected with Helen Brand, a famous literary agent to 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:01.840 such icons as Maya Angelou and fran Leibowitz. And in 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:05.080 the archive at Amorous College which houses feed Lana and 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.960 Helen's letters, I was stunned by the shall we say, 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:14.599 emotionally charged correspondence between these two women. I'm going to 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:18.280 force my mic shy producers to read these letters for me. 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:24.159 The relationship with Helen Brand begins cordially and sweetly. Here's Helen. 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:31.240 You write beautifully about nature, about faith, about people. I 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.599 love your descriptions. This is not a political book, but 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:39.640 a hunting memoir. You can feel speed. Lana's surprised, refreshed, 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:43.040 ready to engage deeply with a collaborator and a champion. 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:46.640 For a long time, I have not heard anyone praising 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:52.200 my work and good things owas make me pray. Helen's 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:54.640 going to make set the talk of the town again. 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.880 She has a game plan. She has connections. She's going 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:01.400 to use them. All have to find the best editor 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:05.320 and the best publisher. She goes on to list editors 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.440 she knows at Random House, Harper and Rogue, nah FSG 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:12.400 a double day. Spent Lana is thrilled. She sees the 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:16.480 whole world opening up to her again. She even makes 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:18.520 plans to buy a new house with what she is 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:21.400 sure will be a nice advance. This is all going 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:25.640 so well, so smoothly. The trajectory is up, up, up, 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:31.040 But what goes up, according to science, must inevitably come down. 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:39.400 Early on, editors start passing. Here's W. W. Norton and co. 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:43.480 The past, which propelled spent Lana into the limelight seems 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:50.960 so distant and really used up that it doesn't resonate now. Basically, 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.800 according to this guy, Spent Lana's old news. Then there's 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:59.120 the actual critique of her manuscripts. He regretfully calls them 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:04.480 one damned thing. After another Random House agrees set Lana 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:08.040 has to be massively edited. But it's not just her 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:14.240 story that's turning publishers away. It's well her I also 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:18.960 know too much about how difficult she can be, how paranoid. Okay, 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.840 that's not fun. But Helen, good old Helen is not 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:25.480 willing to give up on her client just yet. She's 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.840 going to wrap up their critiques into one big constructive 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:32.480 burrito and hope that's Svetlana will bite. Here's the thought. 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:36.120 Set Lana ought to condense all four of her memoirs 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:41.240 into one big, best selling autobiography. Yum is that Soviet 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:45.120 cilantro I taste. I think a book titled set Lana 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:53.240 a Life would sell and sell and sell. Now, before 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:56.080 we get to set Lana's response to this, I want 0:08:56.120 --> 0:09:00.560 to say that I understand the suggestion, yet I also 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:04.040 totally understand the feeling of having written something you're really 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.679 proud of and the person who is supposed to be 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:10.120 your advocate tells you that's great, But why don't you 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:14.319 write it completely differently? This is the reason I'm bald. 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:18.120 Each follicle of hair I've lost is from someone not 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.880 clapping at my work. But I've never had the ovaries 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.320 to do what sveet Lana does next, and that is 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:34.319 to clap back. The whole notion about condensing my whole 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:39.160 body of working one sounds like eskuing a composer to 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:46.240 write one big symphony. Spetlana is downright insulted, and as 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.800 this conflict between agent and client is brewing, spet Lana 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.439 puts a down payment on a house with money from 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:58.520 an advance that was not advanced. PS. I am still 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:00.720 not quite out of a met so I have gotten 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:05.640 into thanks to your promises, that I quote can buy 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:09.720 a house. She sends Helen Brand and her agency a 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:13.480 legal bill for five hundred and ninety two dollars and 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:19.000 thirty six cents. Would your office reimburse me? I think 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:24.680 it should. Helen is astounded by this quote soap opera. 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:29.120 She believed in speed Lana's extraordinary story and was only 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.000 trying to help, but it blew up in her face. 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:37.040 When Spetlana first came to America in nineteen sixty seven, 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.480 she did so on a work visa with a one 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.840 point five million dollar book deal. If you recall, she 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:46.960 was getting so much mail from her readers, America loved her. 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:50.320 Listen to how young and hopeful she sounds. Have you 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:53.920 any idea how many letters you've received? Well? I think 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:56.480 I have received hundreds and hundreds of them. Have you 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:58.480 read most of them? Oh? Yes, of course, And I 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:01.640 keep most of them because they are really very nice 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:06.600 and very kind and warm letters. Now Svetlana is not 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:11.520 receiving letters from adoring readers. She's getting rejection after rejection, 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:16.960 and rejection just sucks, especially when it's your life story 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:21.080 that people are rejecting. That's personal, and for someone so 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:24.679 studied in politics, it's frustrating to me that spet Lana 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:27.960 could not have been less diplomatic in how she received 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:33.360 constructive feedback. She was alienating her allies. But maybe she 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:38.800 was just over it. Maybe after everyone twisting her intentions, 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.120 her words, her story, maybe after East and West had 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.319 yanked her around, Maybe after being robbed of her money 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.920 at Taliessin and emptied of her heart in Russia, maybe 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:53.680 she was just like, fuck all, y'all. The problem is 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:56.880 all those people who had fuck spet Lana over in 0:11:56.920 --> 0:12:00.560 the past had seduced her because they want did something 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:04.559 from her. Helen Brand is just an agent who set 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.640 Lana's never met in person and who is merely trying 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:11.840 to help. Yet set Lana is so over people's input 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:15.079 on her life story that she sees a suggestion as 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:19.880 an attack, critique as a betrayal. The final letter from 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:24.080 helen Brand, which included her returning all of set Lana's manuscripts, 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:29.120 was dated November ninth, nineteen eighty nine, the fifty seventh 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:33.360 anniversary to the day of her mother's death, the exact 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:38.960 day the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. The world was 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:50.040 changing rapidly. Could set Lana keep up more? After the 0:12:50.080 --> 0:13:02.040 Break Act too? The Last Laugh? June nineteen ninety one, 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:07.320 A dreary day in London. After all the rejection in America, 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:11.280 Svetlana has returned to Great Britain once again, and on 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:15.360 this overcast morning, Svetlana gets herself dressed and takes the 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:21.000 tube to London Bridge. When she gets off the train, 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.880 it's raining. She has her umbrella, but it keeps flying 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:32.640 up and turning inside out. When she reaches the bridge, 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:41.360 she finds it deserted, nobody cloud and the water was 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:48.400 muddy and brown and dreadful. She's laughing in this interview, 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:51.480 recorded a few years after the fact, but this is 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:57.320 a grim moment, the lowest low. She Shimmi's up onto 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:01.360 the rail, struggling in her pencil skirt. There was nothing 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:04.680 particularly wrong with my wife on that day, but on 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:08.400 this particular day I thought about it in the very 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:11.960 dark terms. What am I My book farm has published, 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:16.920 like Sienies Lucky escape from that yeah, and it was 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:24.640 very dark, Queny holds. At this time, Stetlana is living 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.040 in a charity hostel in what the Evening Standard dubs 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.120 the shabby end of town, a group home where the 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:35.120 bathroom is shared and residents cook their meals communally. She 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:39.080 just lost a couple of close friends, including fame novelist 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:44.000 Jersey Kazinski, who died the month before by suicide. Stetlana 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:47.120 is reminded of her own mother's suicide, and she thinks, 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.200 if Jersey has nothing to live for with his literary fame, 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:55.280 then what chance does she have. As she stands there 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.360 on the edge of the bridge, perhaps she feels ready 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.880 to join her friends her mother in what she maybe 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:06.400 imagines as a more peaceful place. But as she's struggling 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:10.280 in her pencil skirt, somebody gretnam that they at be 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:15.000 done and pulled me back. Steed Lana is saved by 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:17.760 a man she thinks must be an angel, and as 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.640 he pulls her back to safety, speed Lana struggling in 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.920 his grasp, he shouts, oh, these godless people as I 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:32.200 was fighting are off. I am nobody us and she 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:37.200 was holding me there. The police take her home and 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.760 make her promise not to do it again. As far 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:44.280 as suicide attempts go, speed Lana relays this one with 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:48.160 a surprising amount of irony and humor. And that's what 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:52.560 I love so much about her. It's so characteristically set 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.760 to be able to look back at her most vulnerable moment, 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:58.760 a moment when she was willing to actually end at all, 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:04.960 and well, laugh. Of course, now I think they last 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.840 next day, not maybe last next day. Maybe yah. Yeah. 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:12.440 That laughter. It was something she'd been taught by many 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:15.840 people in her life. It was her antidote to tragedy. 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:21.160 It's a saving grace, yes, but it was always that. 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.800 It was always on the version you could lay, you 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.080 could laugh, and you could, but the last thing would 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:32.200 be laugh. You could cry, you could laugh, but the 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:36.040 last thing would be laugh. You can hear it, can't you? 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:39.240 In her laughter, spet Lana was able to take a 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:44.360 step back from the pain. In nineteen ninety seven, speed Lana, 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:47.840 now seventy one, returns to Wisconsin for the last time 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.320 to live with her twenty six year old daughter, and 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:52.840 for the rest of her life she'll do something she's 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:58.080 never done. She'll stay put. Mother and daughter wouldn't live 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.400 together long, but Olga would always be her closest friend, 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:05.160 her confidant, her protector, and with help from those who 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:07.560 loved and cared for her, set Lana would get to 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:11.200 live out the rest of her days somewhat anonymously. I 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.280 think many people did not even realize who she was. 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.720 I mean, she was private. We called her Lana. That's 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:21.400 Bridget Roberts, who works at the community library in downtown 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:25.520 Spring Green. After we visited Taliessen, my producers and I 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.040 wandered around, hoping to get a glimpse of what spet 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:30.679 Lana's day to day might have looked like. When we 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:33.720 spoke to Bridget, who was just as friendly, chipper and 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:37.440 hushed as a Midwestern library administrator should be, we asked 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.480 her if she knew spet Lana. Yes, she came in 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:45.680 on this library many times. Oh, I definitely knew her, 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:47.600 and she would come in. She loved to sit over 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:50.560 in the reading area and just read books. I took 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:52.600 her home a few times because I said, Lana, you 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:54.639 can't walk all the way home, you know, with it. 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:58.879 But a very very sweet lady and really private. I 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:02.360 love that image of spent Lana Aluyeva or I guess 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:06.400 Lana Peters a short, quiet woman in our seventies, spending 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.680 her days in the library, reading and reading and reading 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:14.080 until closing time. She's sort of an older Russian Matilda, 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:18.960 someone seemingly ordinary who was in fact extraordinary. I think 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.240 she felt comfortable here and safe, and like I said, 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:24.760 many people just knew her is Lana. I don't know 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:28.000 if they really knew what the connection was, but I 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:33.200 think really everyone who knew that connection really respected her 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:36.520 because she did not like the limelight or any of 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:40.119 that kind of stuff sped. Lana had always claim she 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.080 didn't want the limelight, though I'm not convinced that that 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.679 was always true yet certainly by this time in her 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:50.840 life she worked very hard to stay anonymous, so much 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:53.800 so that even now when I meet people who knew her, 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:56.440 they feel like it is their duty to protect her. 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:00.520 Like when my producer Alison and I were interviewing Allen 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:04.639 historian Kieren Murphy and uncovered her connection to set. Towards 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:08.159 the end of our conversation, I'm just curious, since you 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:11.719 recounted that memory of Lana, what the context was of 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:16.840 you getting to know her. I lived above spet Lana 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:21.680 Kieren admitted she'd been purposefully hiding this detail. She had 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:26.880 a house with a second floor, and I lived up 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:31.160 in that apartment. During these years, people would sometimes enquire 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.879 about fet Lana's whereabouts. It was just in the air 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:39.080 because people had heard that she was back from Europe, 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:42.520 and so they would ask me if I knew her, 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:46.600 if I met her. Kieren would always say, I don't 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:49.920 know where she is right now to throw them off 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:54.480 the scent. My joke was always like, I did not know. 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:58.919 Was fet Lana in her living room? Was fet Lana 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:03.880 at the library? Was Fetlana getting her mail? I don't know. 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.520 Even though Karen lived in the same house as Lana, 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.840 she kept a polite distance. She knew that set Lana 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:14.280 was wary and weary of people oggling her. The first 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.000 time that I met her was very sweet, but in 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:21.119 my head, I'm going, oh my god, you're Stalin's daughter. 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:25.080 Oh my god, you're Stalin's daughter. Like that's screaming in 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:28.280 my head, you know, while I'm talking to this very 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:34.360 nice woman, but it's overwhelming. Just what did set Lana 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:37.600 say at one time? Like nobody can control who their 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.639 parents are. And she was like, I wish my mother 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:51.080 had married a carpenter. To her Spring Green neighbors. Launa 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.080 Peters was this sweet old lady who spent her days 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:57.720 quietly reading in the library. To her daughter, she was 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:01.560 still the hilarious, big, complex personality that she had always 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:05.000 been in our conversations. Her daughter told me that she 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:08.240 and speed Lana dressed up as the Golden Girls Dorothy 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:11.760 and Sophia Petrillo for Halloween. That sped Lana would curse 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:14.479 in Russian at her typewriter. She was a terrible typer, 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:18.720 yelling the Russian equivalent of motherfucker or more literally, mother 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:21.760 raper at the keys if they got stuck. That speed 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.800 Lana was always writing, always reading, always brewing some witchy 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:28.880 old world salth that was good for aches and pains. 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:33.240 But to the outside world, Speed Lana had become something 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:36.840 of a legend, a fun fact. Have you heard Stalin's 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:41.960 daughter lives in bumble Fuck, Wisconsin. Journalists, filmmakers, biographers all 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:44.320 tried to reach out to speed Lana, but at this 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:47.399 point in her life she felt so burned and harassed 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:51.280 that she put up a wall. Right. My first letter 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:52.760 heard said, Hey, an Nick, I want to write about 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:54.320 your life she'd be run it away because she didn't 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:58.959 want the attention. That's Nicholas Thompson. Nick is now the 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:01.800 CEO of the Atlanta. Back in two thousand and six, 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:04.919 he was writing a book about George Kennon and reached 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:07.720 out to spet Lana as a source. They soon became 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:11.479 penpal's traded phone calls, and when Nick eventually visits her 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:16.080 in Wisconsin, he meets an older Spetlana, a quieter one. 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:19.359 Her hair has gone white, she walks with a cane, 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:22.760 and she's living in a senior citizen's home, her father's 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:26.639 Russian English dictionary on the bookshelf. He recalls her having 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:29.959 the welcoming energy of someone who hadn't told her story 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:37.000 in a long time. Their conversations were long and numerous. 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:40.800 Spetlana gifted him poignant insights about Kennon, the subject of 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:43.800 his book, and didn't hold back from giving him personal 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:47.600 advice either. They became friends. I feel lucky that I 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:49.360 met her. I felt lucky that I got to talk 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:54.120 to her. I really like I enjoyed those years a letter, 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:57.240 not just as a writer or as a reporter Jack 0:22:57.320 --> 0:22:59.240 sometimes gone in the way, but just as a person 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:02.160 so I was very grateful to have had her as 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:06.520 like an older friend. Nick would eventually pen a wonderful 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:09.840 piece in The New Yorker called My Friend Stalin's Daughter. 0:23:10.320 --> 0:23:12.360 It was one of the first pieces I ever read 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:16.480 about her. She was an extraordinary mix of emotions and 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:20.680 intensities and passions in a way that I found utterly compelling. 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:26.439 Like Nick and so many others, I too have found 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:30.760 her wildness, her daring, her thoughtfulness, her impulsiveness, all of 0:23:30.800 --> 0:23:35.560 her contradictions intoxicating. She's a cocktail I want to keep 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:41.600 drinking forever. I don't know if the inner turmoils that 0:23:41.800 --> 0:23:45.720 Lana had experienced in her life was ever resolved, whether 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:49.320 she had quieted down because she finally found balance, or 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:54.520 that she had just gotten older. She still struggled with money. 0:23:54.800 --> 0:23:58.520 She's still cycled between senior homes. She never forgave her 0:23:58.520 --> 0:24:03.720 father and saw and repurposing his playbook, but still, by 0:24:03.760 --> 0:24:07.399 her daughter's account, she found some sense of peace end 0:24:07.440 --> 0:24:13.240 of laughter in her final years. By twenty eleven, speed 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:18.040 Lana is diagnosed with colon cancer. Sensing she's at the 0:24:18.160 --> 0:24:20.919 end of her days, speed Lana pends a letter and 0:24:21.000 --> 0:24:24.640 gives it to her lawyer, and in November, of course, 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:32.040 she passes away at the age of eighty five. This letter, 0:24:32.240 --> 0:24:35.760 written by speed Lana to her daughter, her last great story, 0:24:36.280 --> 0:24:39.400 is delivered in the aftermath of her death from beyond 0:24:39.480 --> 0:24:43.479 the grave. It's a loving letter about how she's joining 0:24:43.480 --> 0:24:46.880 her ancestors and how she's now watching from the other side. 0:24:47.720 --> 0:24:51.199 She ends it with a scribbled note saying sorry for 0:24:51.280 --> 0:24:55.440 the bad typing, alas it did not improve even from here. 0:24:58.840 --> 0:25:02.200 Whatever you want to call all her spet Lana Aluyeva, 0:25:02.520 --> 0:25:09.679 Luana Peters, you have to admit she got the last laugh. Actually, 0:25:09.920 --> 0:25:12.680 her daughter got the last laugh when she threw a 0:25:12.720 --> 0:25:15.760 party on the beach to scatter her mom's ashes into 0:25:15.800 --> 0:25:19.280 the Pacific Ocean, hoping no one would notice and issue 0:25:19.320 --> 0:25:27.440 her a fine. It was a fitting end laughter and tears, 0:25:27.880 --> 0:25:31.600 a group of friends in the sand drinking wine, casting 0:25:31.640 --> 0:25:57.439 stet Lana out to sea. More after the break, Act 0:25:57.680 --> 0:26:04.200 three curtains Scheherazade was able to stay alive through her storytelling. 0:26:04.760 --> 0:26:08.480 She'd cleverly chop her stories in half, finishing one and 0:26:08.600 --> 0:26:12.119 starting the next in the same night, making her bloodthirsty 0:26:12.200 --> 0:26:15.639 husband salivate. For the end of the tale, instead of 0:26:15.680 --> 0:26:18.760 the end of her life. It's in this way that 0:26:18.800 --> 0:26:23.320 Scheherazade created a kind of never ending story, And though 0:26:23.320 --> 0:26:26.720 that was certainly not spet Lana's intention, I kind of 0:26:26.760 --> 0:26:29.960 feel like she's done that for me. Each chapter of 0:26:30.000 --> 0:26:32.800 her life oddly linking to the next one in a 0:26:32.840 --> 0:26:35.800 way that makes you want to be a detective, understanding 0:26:35.800 --> 0:26:39.879 the links, piecing them all together. Why did she defect 0:26:39.920 --> 0:26:42.720 to the US, Why did she go to tally Esen, 0:26:43.119 --> 0:26:45.600 Why did she marry wes Why did it have to 0:26:45.640 --> 0:26:48.880 happen so fast? Why did she return to the USSR? 0:26:49.160 --> 0:26:52.600 Why did she come back? She writes about all of 0:26:52.640 --> 0:26:56.560 these big life moves in separate books, but she doesn't 0:26:56.600 --> 0:27:00.320 connect the dots. I don't disagree with the editor who said, 0:27:00.320 --> 0:27:04.000 it's quote one damn thing after another. So the why 0:27:04.160 --> 0:27:08.680 keeps me searching. Looking back on her eighty five years 0:27:08.720 --> 0:27:12.000 of life, it's easy to see her as a tragic figure. 0:27:12.640 --> 0:27:15.479 A New York Times obituary calls her life a quote 0:27:15.720 --> 0:27:22.000 bewildering road ending in decades of obscurity, wandering and poverty. 0:27:22.080 --> 0:27:26.520 That is so mean, you guys, And look, it's true. 0:27:27.080 --> 0:27:30.639 Everything that she had gained by defecting in nineteen sixty seven. 0:27:30.920 --> 0:27:33.240 It seems that she had lost by the end of 0:27:33.240 --> 0:27:37.280 her life. Before Roger and Harold met up with spelt Lana, 0:27:37.320 --> 0:27:39.920 they were warned by her friend how poor she was. 0:27:40.600 --> 0:27:44.160 It's the end of the month, and her welfare check 0:27:44.760 --> 0:27:47.320 will ever run out, and you know she probably will 0:27:47.359 --> 0:27:50.080 not offer you any drinks or you think to eat. 0:27:50.840 --> 0:27:55.760 So yes, by some standards, American capitalist standards twenty first century, 0:27:55.800 --> 0:27:58.560 everyone wants to be famous, standards where there are winners 0:27:58.560 --> 0:28:01.800 and losers in life. Sped Lana had lost it all. 0:28:02.240 --> 0:28:05.040 That's how I was characterizing her to Nicholas Thompson when 0:28:05.040 --> 0:28:07.320