Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot
*Starred Review* Moscow-based journalist Gessen, author of  The Man without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (2012), is well versed in the tyranny of Putin’s Russia, the hardened society from which the Moscow women activists and punk rockers calling themselves Pussy Riot emerged, intent on exposing “the frightful absurdity of the land.” They debuted with “Kill the Sexist” and began posting videos of their gutsy guerrilla performances in Metro stations, upscale boutiques, Red Square, and, the site of their swan song, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Hampered in her efforts to speak with the three young women who were arrested and found guilty of hooliganism—Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (Nadya), Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich (Kat)—Gessen talks with their families and friends, piecing together the stories of their ruptured childhoods, teenage searching, and political awakenings, richly atmospheric accounts that reveal the harsh realities Russians endure. Reporting with spiked irony on their ludicrous trial, Gessen movingly chronicles how courageously Nadya and Maria, mothers of young children,  helped others while incarcerated in isolated penal colonies. Pussy Riot is a global cause célèbre, and now Gessen—prickly, frank, precise, and sharply witty—provides the first in-depth look at this story-in-progress as Nadya and Maria, recently released and utterly unbowed, continue to fight for human rights. --Donna Seaman