“Unlike the hordes of amateur historians who have mobbed the world’s libraries over the past decade on the theory that reconstructing lineage equates to personal discovery, Wilmers is up to something that commands general attention.” —New Yorker
"A superbly written book, The Eitingons is much more than a family history, for the author has a deep knowledge of the cultural and political context... It stands as an intimate portrait of a world that seems far removed from our own." —The Observer
“The Eitingons is a riveting history of the twentieth century... There is a lightness and a truthfulness in the narrative that makes you turn every page with pure fascination." —Colm Tóibín
“Well researched, bold, and revealing, Wilmers’s book transforms a series of dark family secrets into an illuminating experience for anybody brave enough to delve into the enigma of family history.” —Publishers Weekly
Leonid Eitingon was a KGB killer who dedicated his life to the Soviet
regime. He was in China in the early 1920s, in Spain during the Civil
War, and, crucially, in Mexico when Trotsky was assassinated. 'As long
as I live,' Stalin had said, 'not a hair of his head shall be touched.'
It did not work out like that.
Max Eitingon was a psychoanalyst: a colleague, friend and protégé of
Freud's. He was rich, secretive and - through his friendship with a
famous Russian singer - implicated in the abduction of a white Russian
general in Paris in 1937.
Motty Eitingon was a New York fur dealer whose connections with the
Soviet Union made him the largest trader in the world. Imprisoned by the
Bolsheviks, and questioned by the FBI in a state of Cold War paranoia:
was Motty everybody's friend or everybody's enemy?
Mary-Kay Wilmers began exploring the history of her remarkable family
twenty years ago. The result is a book of astonishing scope and
thrilling originality which throws light into some of the darkest
corners of the last century.