0:01

A warning before we start. This

0:03

episode includes discussions of

0:05

suicide. In

0:08

one of my conversations with Svetlana's

0:10

daughter, there was one detail she

0:12

shared about her mother that really stuck

0:14

with me. Olga had spent

0:17

her childhood living alongside, living

0:19

inside her mother's trauma,

0:21

and after many moves and revelations

0:24

and heartbreaks, that trauma was

0:26

something the two of them shared. But

0:28

Svetlana was resilient, and

0:31

she wanted to teach her daughter resilience.

0:33

Two. My mother would

0:36

make me recite the story of Scheherazade

0:38

to myself as a means

0:40

of telling myself that

0:43

things could be so much worse. The

0:47

story of Scheherazade comes from

0:50

the classic tale One thousand and

0:52

one Nights. As the story goes,

0:54

a Persian sultan, driven into a jealous

0:57

rage by his unfaithful wife, would

0:59

marry a verse gin every night and behead

1:01

her in the morning. When the beautiful

1:04

and clever Shahrazade weds the monarch,

1:06

she staves off death by telling him

1:09

enchanting stories Aladdin

1:11

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Sindbad

1:13

the Sailor. But each night she stops

1:15

the story before getting to the end. If

1:18

the Sultan wanted to hear the rest. He'd

1:20

have to spare her life until the next night,

1:23

and the next, and the

1:25

next, and after one thousand

1:28

and one nights of bedtime story

1:30

blue Balls. The Sultan, who'd

1:32

fallen head over heels for Shahrazad,

1:34

spares her life forever. Ah,

1:38

love, I could

1:40

be kidnapped by a king and having to be telling

1:42

him stories to keep myself alive, you

1:44

know, the never ending story to keep myself alive,

1:47

that kind of thing like we should be so

1:49

lucky. Of

1:52

all the sagas of survival that' stet

1:54

Lana could have compelled her daughter to recite,

1:57

she chose Shahrazade, a

1:59

woman trapped by a tyrant, A

2:01

woman whose power, whose very survival

2:04

was rooted in her ability to tell stories

2:08

of Stalin's children. His eldest

2:10

son was killed in war at thirty

2:12

six. His younger son drank

2:15

himself to death by forty, but

2:17

Svetlana lived to eighty five. She

2:20

lived by telling her story. Storytelling

2:24

was her route to freedom, her ticket

2:26

to America, to financial independence,

2:28

a means to gain control over and

2:31

make sense of her messy life. So

2:36

how does that Lana's story end?

2:40

Did she ultimately find what she was looking

2:42

for. Did she ever really break

2:44

free of her family history, of the cycles

2:46

that haunted her? Can

2:49

any of us? I'm

2:56

Dan Katroser and this is

2:59

the last step episoda of sted

3:01

Lana Steed Lana. You

3:04

wake up in the morning,

3:08

you live your day, and then

3:11

you do it tomorrow

3:14

and over and over

3:17

again, and

3:21

over again and

3:26

over again.

3:29

Act one. I did

3:31

it my way.

3:35

Sped Lana had spent the last few years

3:38

trying to reconnect with her family, with

3:40

her roots, and find a place that felt

3:42

like home. Now she

3:44

found herself back to square one

3:46

in Wisconsin, or more like

3:49

square eight. I don't know. I'm

3:51

not one for numbers. Here's

3:53

Rosemary, you know it's It's a

3:55

story that is unbelievably

3:58

structured because everything echoes every thing else.

4:02

Spent Lana is back in Wisconsin

4:05

again. Olga is back at boarding

4:07

school in England again. Spent

4:09

Lana's two Russian children are lost

4:12

to her again, and

4:14

now she's alone in a hunting

4:16

lodge in the woods that she bought for cheap. Some

4:19

newspapers report that she's got fifteen

4:21

hundred dollars to her name, and

4:23

when she reaches out to friends to ask for

4:25

money, a very normal communist

4:28

thing to do when you need help. Her American

4:30

capitalist friends are embarrassed for

4:32

her, and the press has a field

4:34

day. I'm looking at this one clipping

4:37

now where Spet's wearing eighties wire

4:39

frame aviator glasses with the

4:41

headline Stalin's sad

4:43

daughter has to beg Jesus

4:47

in the past, when speed Lana's been this

4:49

confused, down and out, overexposed,

4:52

underappreciated, She's fallen

4:54

back on her writing. She's reclaimed

4:57

her voice and she got rich doing

4:59

it, so she tries again.

5:02

Steed Lana writes another book,

5:05

a memoir called A Book for Granddaughters

5:08

about her time back in Russia, and

5:10

if you recall, stet Lana had also

5:12

written a book while living in England, a memoir

5:15

called The Faraway Music about her time

5:17

it's Holly Esen. So

5:19

she's got these two books, two

5:22

books that I love so much. We

5:24

built this podcast around the stories they

5:26

contain, and yet no one

5:28

gives a shit about them because they

5:30

aren't about her father. The

5:33

only interest in Svetlana

5:35

was that she was Stalin's daughter, so she wasn't

5:37

talking about Stalin. They weren't interested,

5:41

So she decides she needs

5:43

help from someone with a bit more

5:46

agency, and who might have

5:48

more agency why

5:51

an agent, perhaps Steed.

5:53

Lana gets connected with Helen Brand,

5:55

a famous literary agent to such icons

5:58

as Maya Angelou and fran

6:00

Leibowitz. And in the archive at

6:02

Amorous College which houses feed Lana

6:05

and Helen's letters, I was stunned

6:07

by the shall we say, emotionally

6:10

charged correspondence between these

6:12

two women. I'm going to

6:14

force my mic shy producers to

6:16

read these letters for me. The

6:19

relationship with Helen Brand begins

6:21

cordially and sweetly. Here's

6:23

Helen. You

6:27

write beautifully about nature,

6:29

about faith, about people. I

6:31

love your descriptions. This is

6:33

not a political book, but a hunting memoir.

6:36

You can feel speed. Lana's surprised,

6:39

refreshed, ready to engage deeply

6:41

with a collaborator and a champion. For

6:43

a long time, I have not heard anyone

6:46

praising my work and good

6:48

things owas make me pray.

6:51

Helen's going to make set the talk of

6:53

the town again. She has a game plan.

6:56

She has connections. She's going to use

6:58

them. All have to

7:00

find the best editor and the best publisher.

7:03

She goes on to list editors she knows

7:05

at Random House, Harper and Rogue, nah

7:08

FSG a double day. Spent

7:10

Lana is thrilled. She sees

7:12

the whole world opening up to her again.

7:15

She even makes plans to buy a new house

7:17

with what she is sure will be a nice advance.

7:20

This is all going so well, so

7:22

smoothly. The trajectory is up,

7:25

up, up, But what goes

7:27

up, according to science, must

7:29

inevitably come down. Early

7:35

on, editors start passing. Here's

7:38

W. W. Norton and co. The past,

7:40

which propelled spent Lana into the limelight

7:43

seems so distant and really

7:45

used up that it doesn't resonate now.

7:50

Basically, according to this guy, Spent

7:52

Lana's old news. Then there's

7:54

the actual critique of her manuscripts.

7:57

He regretfully calls them one

7:59

damned thing. After another Random

8:02

House agrees set Lana

8:04

has to be massively edited. But

8:07

it's not just her story that's turning

8:09

publishers away. It's

8:11

well her I

8:14

also know too much about how difficult she can

8:16

be, how paranoid. Okay,

8:19

that's not fun. But Helen, good

8:21

old Helen is not willing to give up on

8:23

her client just yet. She's going to wrap

8:26

up their critiques into one big constructive

8:28

burrito and hope that's Svetlana will

8:31

bite. Here's the thought. Set

8:33

Lana ought to condense all four of

8:35

her memoirs into one big, best

8:37

selling autobiography. Yum

8:40

is that Soviet cilantro I taste.

8:43

I think a book titled set Lana a

8:45

Life would sell and sell

8:47

and sell. Now,

8:52

before we get to set Lana's response

8:54

to this, I want to say that I

8:57

understand the suggestion, yet

8:59

I also totally understand

9:01

the feeling of having written something you're really

9:04

proud of and the person who is supposed

9:06

to be your advocate tells you that's

9:08

great, But why don't you write it completely

9:10

differently? This is the

9:13

reason I'm bald. Each

9:15

follicle of hair I've lost is

9:17

from someone not clapping at my work.

9:20

But I've never had the ovaries to do

9:22

what sveet Lana does next, and

9:24

that is to clap back. The

9:30

whole notion about condensing

9:33

my whole body of working one sounds

9:37

like eskuing a composer to write

9:39

one big symphony. Spetlana

9:43

is downright insulted, and

9:46

as this conflict between agent and client

9:48

is brewing, spet Lana puts a

9:50

down payment on a house with

9:52

money from an advance that was not

9:55

advanced. PS. I

9:57

am still not quite out of a met

10:00

so I have gotten into thanks to your

10:02

promises, that I quote

10:04

can buy a house. She

10:07

sends Helen Brand and her agency

10:09

a legal bill for five hundred

10:11

and ninety two dollars and thirty

10:14

six cents. Would your office

10:16

reimburse me? I

10:18

think it should. Helen

10:21

is astounded by this quote soap

10:24

opera. She believed in speed Lana's

10:26

extraordinary story and was only

10:29

trying to help, but it blew up

10:31

in her face. When

10:33

Spetlana first came to America in

10:35

nineteen sixty seven, she did so on

10:38

a work visa with a one point five million

10:40

dollar book deal. If you recall, she

10:43

was getting so much mail from her readers,

10:45

America loved her. Listen

10:47

to how young and hopeful she sounds. Have

10:50

you any idea how many letters you've received? Well?

10:53

I think I have received hundreds and hundreds of

10:55

them. Have you read most of them? Oh? Yes,

10:57

of course, And I keep most of them

11:00

because they are really very nice and very

11:02

kind and warm letters. Now

11:05

Svetlana is not receiving letters from

11:07

adoring readers. She's getting rejection

11:10

after rejection, and rejection

11:13

just sucks, especially

11:15

when it's your life story that people are

11:17

rejecting. That's personal, and

11:20

for someone so studied in politics, it's

11:23

frustrating to me that spet Lana could not

11:25

have been less diplomatic in how she

11:27

received constructive feedback. She

11:29

was alienating her allies. But

11:32

maybe she was just over

11:35

it. Maybe after everyone

11:37

twisting her intentions, her words,

11:39

her story, maybe after East and

11:41

West had yanked her around, Maybe

11:43

after being robbed of her money at Taliessin

11:46

and emptied of her heart in Russia,

11:48

maybe she was just like, fuck

11:51

all, y'all. The problem

11:53

is all those people who had fuck

11:55

spet Lana over in the past had

11:58

seduced her because they want did

12:00

something from her. Helen

12:02

Brand is just an agent who set

12:04

Lana's never met in person and who

12:06

is merely trying to help. Yet

12:08

set Lana is so over people's

12:11

input on her life story that she sees

12:13

a suggestion as an attack, critique

12:17

as a betrayal. The final

12:19

letter from helen Brand, which included

12:21

her returning all of set Lana's manuscripts,

12:24

was dated November ninth, nineteen

12:26

eighty nine, the fifty seventh

12:29

anniversary to the day of

12:31

her mother's death, the exact

12:33

day the Berlin Wall came tumbling

12:35

down. The

12:38

world was changing rapidly.

12:43

Could set Lana keep up more?

12:49

After the Break Act

12:56

too? The Last Laugh?

13:00

June nineteen ninety one, A

13:02

dreary day in London. After

13:05

all the rejection in America, Svetlana

13:08

has returned to Great Britain once again,

13:10

and on this overcast morning, Svetlana

13:13

gets herself dressed and takes the tube

13:15

to London Bridge.

13:19

When she gets off the train, it's raining.

13:22

She has her umbrella, but it keeps flying

13:25

up and turning inside out. When

13:31

she reaches the bridge, she finds it

13:33

deserted, nobody cloud

13:40

and the water was muddy

13:43

and brown and dreadful.

13:46

She's laughing in this interview, recorded

13:49

a few years after the fact, but this

13:51

is a grim moment, the lowest

13:53

low. She

13:56

Shimmi's up onto the rail, struggling

13:58

in her pencil skirt. There

14:00

was nothing particularly wrong with my

14:02

wife on that day, but on this particular

14:05

day I thought about

14:07

it in the very dark terms.

14:09

What am I My book farm has published,

14:12

like Sienies Lucky

14:14

escape from that yeah, and it was very

14:17

dark, Queny holds.

14:22

At this time, Stetlana is living

14:24

in a charity hostel in what the Evening

14:26

Standard dubs the shabby end

14:29

of town, a group home where the bathroom

14:31

is shared and residents cook their meals

14:33

communally. She just lost a

14:36

couple of close friends, including

14:38

fame novelist Jersey Kazinski, who

14:40

died the month before by suicide.

14:43

Stetlana is reminded of her own mother's

14:45

suicide, and she thinks, if Jersey

14:47

has nothing to live for with his literary

14:49

fame, then what chance does she have.

14:54

As she stands there on the edge of the

14:56

bridge, perhaps she feels ready

14:58

to join her friends her mother

15:01

in what she maybe imagines as a more

15:03

peaceful place. But

15:05

as she's struggling in her pencil skirt,

15:08

somebody gretnam that they at be done

15:11

and pulled me back. Steed

15:14

Lana is saved by a man she thinks must

15:16

be an angel, and as he pulls her

15:18

back to safety, speed Lana struggling

15:20

in his grasp, he shouts, oh, these

15:22

godless people as I

15:25

was fighting are

15:27

off. I am nobody us

15:31

and she was holding me there.

15:35

The police take her home and make her

15:37

promise not to do it again. As

15:40

far as suicide attempts go, speed

15:42

Lana relays this one with a surprising

15:45

amount of irony and humor. And

15:47

that's what I love so much about her.

15:50

It's so characteristically set

15:52

to be able to look back at her most vulnerable

15:55

moment, a moment when she was willing

15:57

to actually end at all, and well,

16:00

laugh.

16:02

Of course, now I

16:04

think they last next day, not maybe last next

16:06

day. Maybe yah. Yeah.

16:09

That laughter. It was something

16:11

she'd been taught by many people in her life.

16:13

It was her antidote to tragedy.

16:16

It's a saving grace, yes,

16:19

but it was always that. It was always

16:22

on the version you could lay, you could

16:25

laugh, and you could, but the

16:27

last thing would be laugh. You

16:30

could cry, you could laugh, but

16:32

the last thing would be laugh. You

16:34

can hear it, can't you? In her laughter,

16:37

spet Lana was able to take a step

16:39

back from the pain. In

16:42

nineteen ninety seven, speed Lana, now

16:44

seventy one, returns to Wisconsin

16:47

for the last time to live with her twenty six year

16:49

old daughter, and for the rest of her life

16:51

she'll do something she's never done. She'll

16:54

stay put. Mother

16:57

and daughter wouldn't live together long, but

16:59

Olga would always be her closest friend,

17:01

her confidant, her protector, and

17:04

with help from those who loved and cared for her,

17:06

set Lana would get to live out the rest of her

17:08

days somewhat anonymously. I

17:11

think many people did not even realize

17:13

who she was. I mean, she was private.

17:15

We called her Lana. That's

17:17

Bridget Roberts, who works at the community

17:20

library in downtown Spring Green. After

17:23

we visited Taliessen, my producers

17:25

and I wandered around, hoping to get a glimpse

17:27

of what spet Lana's day to day might have looked

17:29

like. When we spoke to Bridget, who

17:32

was just as friendly, chipper and hushed

17:34

as a Midwestern library administrator should

17:36

be, we asked her if she knew spet

17:38

Lana. Yes, she came in on

17:40

this library many times.

17:43

Oh, I definitely knew

17:45

her, and she would come in. She loved to sit over

17:47

in the reading area and just read books.

17:50

I took her home a few times because I said,

17:52

Lana, you can't walk all the way home, you know,

17:54

with it. But a very very

17:56

sweet lady and really private. I

17:59

love that image of spent Lana Aluyeva

18:01

or I guess Lana Peters a

18:03

short, quiet woman in our seventies, spending

18:06

her days in the library, reading and

18:08

reading and reading until closing time.

18:11

She's sort of an older Russian Matilda,

18:14

someone seemingly ordinary who was in

18:16

fact extraordinary. I

18:18

think she felt comfortable here and safe,

18:21

and like I said, many people just knew her is

18:23

Lana. I don't know if they really

18:25

knew what the connection was, but I

18:28

think really everyone who knew that connection

18:31

really respected her because

18:34

she did not like the limelight or any of that

18:36

kind of stuff sped. Lana

18:39

had always claim she didn't want the limelight,

18:41

though I'm not convinced that that was always

18:44

true yet certainly by this

18:46

time in her life she worked very hard

18:48

to stay anonymous, so

18:50

much so that even now when I meet

18:52

people who knew her, they feel like it is

18:55

their duty to protect her. Like

18:57

when my producer Alison and I were

18:59

interviewing Allen historian Kieren

19:01

Murphy and uncovered her connection

19:03

to set. Towards the end of our conversation,

19:06

I'm just curious, since you recounted

19:08

that memory of Lana, what the context

19:11

was of you getting to know her. I

19:14

lived above spet Lana

19:17

Kieren admitted she'd been purposefully

19:19

hiding this detail. She had

19:21

a house with a second

19:24

floor, and I lived

19:26

up in that apartment. During these

19:28

years, people would sometimes enquire

19:31

about fet Lana's whereabouts. It

19:33

was just in the air because

19:35

people had heard that she was back

19:38

from Europe, and so

19:40

they would ask me if I knew her,

19:42

if I met her. Kieren

19:44

would always say, I don't know where

19:46

she is right now to

19:49

throw them off the scent. My joke

19:51

was always like, I

19:53

did not know. Was fet Lana in

19:56

her living room? Was fet

19:58

Lana at the library? Was Fetlana

20:01

getting her mail? I

20:03

don't know. Even though Karen

20:05

lived in the same house as Lana, she

20:07

kept a polite distance. She knew

20:10

that set Lana was wary and weary

20:12

of people oggling her. The first

20:14

time that I met her was very sweet,

20:16

but in my head, I'm

20:19

going, oh my god, you're Stalin's daughter.

20:21

Oh my god, you're Stalin's daughter.

20:23

Like that's screaming in my head, you

20:26

know, while I'm talking to this very nice

20:29

woman, but it's

20:31

overwhelming. Just what did

20:33

set Lana say at one time? Like nobody

20:36

can control who their parents are. And

20:38

she was like, I wish my mother had

20:41

married a carpenter. To

20:49

her Spring Green neighbors. Launa Peters

20:51

was this sweet old lady who spent her

20:53

days quietly reading in the library. To

20:56

her daughter, she was still the hilarious,

20:59

big, complex personality that she

21:01

had always been in our conversations.

21:03

Her daughter told me that she and speed Lana

21:06

dressed up as the Golden Girls Dorothy

21:08

and Sophia Petrillo for Halloween. That

21:10

sped Lana would curse in Russian at her

21:12

typewriter. She was a terrible typer, yelling

21:15

the Russian equivalent of motherfucker

21:17

or more literally, mother raper at

21:19

the keys if they got stuck. That speed

21:21

Lana was always writing, always reading,

21:24

always brewing some witchy old

21:26

world salth that was good for aches

21:28

and pains. But to the

21:30

outside world, Speed Lana had

21:32

become something of a legend, a fun

21:34

fact. Have you heard Stalin's

21:36

daughter lives in bumble Fuck, Wisconsin. Journalists,

21:40

filmmakers, biographers all tried

21:42

to reach out to speed Lana, but at this

21:44

point in her life she felt so burned

21:46

and harassed that she put up a wall.

21:50

Right. My first letter heard said, Hey, an Nick, I want to write

21:52

about your life she'd be run it away because she didn't want the

21:54

attention. That's

21:56

Nicholas Thompson. Nick is now the

21:59

CEO of the Atlanta. Back in two

22:01

thousand and six, he was writing a book

22:03

about George Kennon and reached out to

22:05

spet Lana as a source. They soon

22:07

became penpal's traded phone calls,

22:09

and when Nick eventually visits her in Wisconsin,

22:12

he meets an older Spetlana,

22:14

a quieter one. Her hair

22:17

has gone white, she walks with a cane,

22:19

and she's living in a senior citizen's home,

22:22

her father's Russian English dictionary

22:24

on the bookshelf. He recalls her

22:26

having the welcoming energy of someone

22:28

who hadn't told her story in a long

22:30

time. Their

22:34

conversations were long and numerous.

22:37

Spetlana gifted him poignant insights

22:39

about Kennon, the subject of his book, and

22:41

didn't hold back from giving him personal advice

22:44

either. They became friends.

22:46

I feel lucky that I met her. I felt lucky that I

22:48

got to talk to her. I really like I

22:51

enjoyed those years a letter,

22:54

not just as a writer or as a reporter

22:57

Jack sometimes gone in the way, but just as a person

22:59

so I was very grateful to have

23:01

had her as like an older friend. Nick

23:04

would eventually pen a wonderful piece

23:06

in The New Yorker called My Friend

23:08

Stalin's Daughter. It was one of the

23:11

first pieces I ever read about her. She

23:13

was an extraordinary mix of

23:15

emotions and intensities and passions

23:18

in a way that I found utterly

23:20

compelling. Like

23:23

Nick and so many others, I too

23:26

have found her wildness, her daring, her

23:28

thoughtfulness, her impulsiveness,

23:30

all of her contradictions intoxicating.

23:33

She's a cocktail I want to keep drinking

23:36

forever. I

23:39

don't know if the inner turmoils that Lana

23:42

had experienced in her life was ever

23:44

resolved, whether she had quieted

23:46

down because she finally found balance,

23:49

or that she had just gotten older. She

23:53

still struggled with money. She's still

23:55

cycled between senior homes. She

23:57

never forgave her father and saw

24:00

and repurposing his playbook, but

24:02

still, by her daughter's account,

24:05

she found some sense of peace end

24:07

of laughter in her final years.

24:11

By twenty eleven, speed Lana is

24:13

diagnosed with colon cancer. Sensing

24:17

she's at the end of her days, speed Lana

24:19

pends a letter and gives it to her lawyer,

24:22

and in November, of course, she

24:25

passes away at the age of eighty five.

24:31

This letter, written by speed Lana to

24:33

her daughter, her last great story,

24:36

is delivered in the aftermath of her death

24:38

from beyond the grave. It's

24:41

a loving letter about how she's

24:43

joining her ancestors and how she's

24:45

now watching from the other side. She

24:48

ends it with a scribbled note saying

24:50

sorry for the bad typing, alas

24:53

it did not improve even from

24:55

here. Whatever

24:59

you want to call all her spet Lana

25:01

Aluyeva, Luana Peters, you

25:04

have to admit she got the last

25:06

laugh. Actually,

25:09

her daughter got the last laugh when

25:12

she threw a party on the beach to scatter

25:14

her mom's ashes into the Pacific Ocean,

25:17

hoping no one would notice and issue

25:19

her a fine. It

25:24

was a fitting end laughter and

25:27

tears, a group of friends in the

25:29

sand drinking wine, casting

25:31

stet Lana out to sea. More

25:44

after the break, Act

25:57

three curtains

26:00

Scheherazade was able to stay alive

26:03

through her storytelling. She'd

26:05

cleverly chop her stories in half,

26:07

finishing one and starting the next in

26:09

the same night, making her bloodthirsty

26:12

husband salivate. For the end of the tale,

26:15

instead of the end of her life. It's

26:18

in this way that Scheherazade created

26:20

a kind of never ending story,

26:22

And though that was certainly not spet Lana's

26:24

intention, I kind of feel

26:27

like she's done that for me. Each

26:29

chapter of her life oddly linking

26:31

to the next one in a way that makes you

26:33

want to be a detective, understanding

26:35

the links, piecing them all together.

26:38

Why did she defect to the US, Why

26:41

did she go to tally Esen, Why did

26:43

she marry wes Why did it have to

26:45

happen so fast? Why did she return

26:47

to the USSR? Why did she come

26:50

back? She writes about

26:52

all of these big life moves in separate

26:54

books, but she doesn't connect

26:57

the dots. I don't disagree

26:59

with the editor who said, it's quote one

27:01

damn thing after another. So

27:03

the why keeps me searching. Looking

27:07

back on her eighty five years of life,

27:09

it's easy to see her as a tragic figure.

27:12

A New York Times obituary calls her

27:14

life a quote bewildering road

27:17

ending in decades of obscurity,

27:19

wandering and poverty.

27:22

That is so mean, you guys,

27:25

And look, it's true. Everything

27:27

that she had gained by defecting in nineteen

27:29

sixty seven. It seems that she had

27:32

lost by the end of her life. Before

27:34

Roger and Harold met up with spelt Lana,

27:37

they were warned by her friend how poor

27:39

she was. It's the end of the month,

27:42

and her welfare check will

27:44

ever run out, and you know she probably

27:47

will not offer you any drinks or

27:49

you think to eat. So yes,

27:51

by some standards, American capitalist

27:54

standards twenty first century, everyone

27:56

wants to be famous, standards where there are winners

27:58

and losers in life. Sped Lana

28:00

had lost it all. That's how I

28:02

was characterizing her to Nicholas Thompson when

28:05

I sat down with him, and I was blown

28:07

away when he corrected me. She seemed

28:09

like a great American immigrant, right like, Yeah,

28:12

just came here and became

28:15

something entirely new. I think. I

28:17

mean she broke out of one life, created

28:19

a new one, had a whole bunch of ups and

28:21

downs. But I

28:24

don't think of her story as a tragic one at

28:26

all. It had tragic elements,

28:28

but was not a tragic story. She lived a very

28:30

full life. She lived a fascinating

28:32

life. She lived an emotionally invigorating

28:35

life. She had a

28:38

fulfilled life. There were lots of

28:40

upslots and downs, massive

28:43

regrets, but I certainly don't

28:45

think of it as a tragedy. As

28:48

a writer trying to understand her, it's

28:51

easy to get lost and sped Lana's life.

28:53

He sped Lana. Herself got lost in

28:55

it too. But Thompson is right.

28:58

Sped Lana story may have tragic elements,

29:01

but it's not a tragedy. At one

29:03

point, she even said so herself. Sometimes,

29:07

if you are interested to listen

29:09

to one of the most funny stories

29:11

of our time, my paradoxical

29:14

life, I would be glad to tell

29:16

you more. It is your saga,

29:18

an irony, is the tire and the

29:21

tragedy all in one. I'm

29:23

glad I have survived it all, and

29:26

I'm still an optimist, but I

29:28

do laugh a lot at myself, and if

29:30

I lose that mess of tupacity, my

29:33

end will come fast. A

29:37

saga, an irony, a satire,

29:39

a tragedy. That was

29:41

what drew me to spetlana story in the

29:43

first place, the tale of a

29:46

woman who did everything in her power

29:48

to shuffle off the shackles of one

29:50

life, only to thrust herself into

29:52

the cage of another. And then to do

29:54

it over and over again, each

29:57

time intersecting with the most bizarre

29:59

ca arcters of history. This is

30:01

what made me want to write her into a play,

30:04

a play that itself would be all

30:07

of the things that she was, all

30:09

of the things that I am.

30:12

When I started the process of writing

30:14

about set Lana, I knew that that

30:17

was where I wanted to take the story. What

30:19

I didn't expect was where

30:22

the story would take me on

30:24

trips to Scottsdale. Welcome

30:27

to the Terminal three, a Phoenix International

30:30

Airs on

30:32

tours of Wisconsin. Your destination

30:35

is on the left, we see. Thank

30:37

you so much this.

30:41

Yeah, I'd

30:43

become friends with authors Roger Friedland

30:46

and Harold Zellman. Oh, Roger, you sound

30:49

beautiful. I want you to read me the Bible.

30:51

I'd be happy to you

30:54

know that, Sodom and Gomora Parts and

31:00

Sharon. The love for stet Lana with biographer

31:02

Rosemary Sullivan. Your affection

31:04

for Steve Lana moves me. I mean

31:07

she really matters to you. Yeah,

31:10

she does. I get to

31:13

meet people who knew stet Lana

31:15

funny, smart, interesting. She

31:17

always had like a funny quip. You know,

31:19

she had great stories. It's just a total

31:21

pleasure to talk with her, and I'd get out

31:23

of a trap that I and stet

31:26

Lana and so many writers always

31:28

fall into. I'd find

31:30

a gang of artists who were not only my champions,

31:34

but my collaborators, my comrades,

31:37

Adam Webber, Alison Joy, and Catherine

31:40

Isaac, the Stetlanits as

31:42

I call us as.

31:44

Someone pick a tone and we're all gonna harmonize.

31:48

Wait no, yeah,

31:52

yeah, not sound terrible. All

31:55

right, Alison, you go again. Yeah,

32:05

I feel like this is Ultimately

32:14

We've told this tale with humor. It

32:17

was honestly the most reverential way

32:19

I could tell it, and I hope, against

32:21

hope that spet Lana would get the joke, or

32:25

maybe not. The woman certainly had lots of

32:27

opinions, but I wouldn't have

32:29

her any other way. It's

32:31

because of our fearless storytellers,

32:33

our spet Lana's are Shahrazads,

32:36

that we have these never ending stories

32:38

to tap into. It's

32:42

been more than ten years since she died,

32:44

and spet Lana's life story and her

32:46

writing have changed me. I'm

32:50

calmer now, just kidding,

32:52

I'm really not. I'm still the same messy

32:54

person I always was. I just know

32:56

that you can leap fearlessly

32:58

into the next chapter of your life and

33:01

rest assured that you'll retain all

33:03

of your glorious, fabulous flaws.

33:06

That, among many other things,

33:09

is what her life means to me. I

33:12

hope spent Lana's life has meant something

33:14

to you. It would seem that she

33:16

hopes so too. She

33:19

closes her last book, a Book

33:21

for Granddaughters, with this parting

33:23

thought, The

33:25

hope of this writer is that the memoirs

33:28

of my generation will be appreciated

33:30

by those who never knew our times.

33:34

Our books will help them to understand

33:36

not only another era, but

33:38

different people. And granddaughters

33:41

of all colors and creeds

33:43

not only mine, will then find

33:45

on these old fashioned pages

33:48

strange and unreal situations,

33:51

but also some familiar faces.

33:54

So the next time you have an impulse

33:57

to throw your life up into the air, blow

33:59

it up, crash into a new

34:01

chapter, think of spent Lana

34:04

and know that, sure you just might

34:06

lose everything, but you'll have

34:08

one hell of a story. Let's

34:12

drink to that, but not vodka.

34:15

Svetlana preferred a gin and tonic.

34:18

Vodka she said was for

34:20

peasants. My

34:23

name is Dan Katroser, and this

34:25

was spet Lana spent Lana. St

34:31

Lana spent Lana is a production of iHeart

34:33

Podcasts and the documentary group. I'm

34:36

your host, Dan Katroser. The show

34:38

is written and produced by me and my friends

34:40

Adam Webber, Alison Joy, and Katherine

34:43

Isaac. We also serve as executive

34:45

producers at the documentary group.

34:47

Our executive producer and all around

34:49

fairy godmother is job A Silhouettes.

34:52

Production oversight by Stacy Kleiger,

34:54

additional support from Tom Yellen and

34:56

Gabrielle Tenenbaum. Our iHeart

34:59

team is supervising producer Casey

35:01

Pegram and executive producer Maya

35:03

Howard. Editing assistants from producers

35:05

Christina Loranger and Joey pat These

35:08

folks went above and beyond and were forever

35:10

grateful. Original music

35:13

by Elan Izakov, Your Brilliant

35:15

Buddy. Production counsel

35:17

by slas Ekhouse, Dasty Haynes Lockoe,

35:20

Clearance counsel by Ballard Sparr

35:22

Jay You're Our Hero. Fact

35:24

checking assistance by Meghan Trout. Excerpts

35:27

from spit Lana Alujeva's book, A Book

35:29

for Granddaughters are performed by Cassie

35:32

Greer. Cassie, along with Alyssa,

35:34

Josh Luanne, Sean, Sherry Beth

35:37

and Line Storm Playwrights, helped me develop

35:39

my play and we're some of my earliest partners

35:42

in crime. Thank you all. Big

35:44

thanks to parents Neil and Diane for

35:47

taking me on the best trip to Amherst, and

35:49

my cousin Jenny and her fiance Jared

35:51

for going on multiple tours of tally Esen

35:53

West with me and show furring me around

35:55

Arizona. I'm so glad

35:58

I don't drive. And thank

36:00

you to the partners of our writing and producing

36:02

team who have added so much to

36:05

this project emotionally, spiritually

36:07

and creatively Jeff Wooker,

36:10

Jonathan Willen, and Lena Vaughan. Lena,

36:12

you are the one who said this story should

36:14

be a podcast. So grateful for

36:17

all of your support. And lastly

36:19

to my husband Jordan Siegel. You've

36:22

been there with me every step of the way

36:24

during this project. You must

36:26

be exhausted. Thank

36:29

you.