How A Famous Fraud Brought A Kind Of Hope In 'I Was Anastasia'
Ariel Lawhon's new novel is a biography of both Russia's Grand Duchess Anastasia and Anna Anderson, the woman who claimed to be Anastasia after the royal family was executed during the Revolution.
The narrator of Ariel Lawhon's new novel asks readers on the first page: "Am I truly Anastasia Romanov? A beloved daughter. A revered icon. A Russian grand duchess? Or am I an impostor?" Lawhon's new novel, , is a kind of dual biography that imagines the story of what led up to the execution of Russia's royal family (including Anastasia)by the Bolsheviks in But there's no doubt about what happened to the real Anastasia, "and that actually creates the first dilemma when you're writing a novel about the Romanovs," Lawhon says, "when everyone knows how the story ends, so how do you make it different and new and interesting?"
