Review: At last, an empowering female protagonist
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 7, 2012
In most modern-day international thrillers---and in pop fiction generally--- female characters play subordinate or auxiliary roles. They are defined primarily in relation to one or more male protagonists, and do not drive the plot through their own decisions and actions. It is rare that they reside at the narrative center; more often than not they are mere sexual objects and/or passive participants in larger events.This is categorically not the case with Eric Almeida's `Minsk Rises,' which is rather unique. And altogether refreshing.The reason lays in the character of Lena Antonova, a young university professor in Minsk. By virtue of her profession and personal bent, she is an independent thinker and inquisitive soul, one who probes larger questions and who responds to personal challenges first and foremost with reason and intellect. In light of these qualities, one irony of the narrative is that she does nonetheless become an object of sexual desire and a victim of larger forces, especially political ones. The difference is how she responds, and bends events along lines of her choosing. I won't give away either the plot or the ending but she has no equivalent in any fiction I've read, not just of the popular variety but of any genre.There's much more scope for commentary on `Minsk Rises'---almost all of it positive---but I don't intend this to be an exhaustive review. What I want to emphasize most of all is Lena Antonova. For me, I would even say she is not just well-portrayed and unforgettable; she is empowering. For those readers who lament the dearth of such female characters in modern American fiction, go no further.