OH, this sounds amazing! I actually played the first movement of the Leningrad Symphony in high school (90's) and they told us a little about the history behind it, and Shostakovich having to be super double-faced about it, and how when you listen to it one way it's this cool patriotic theme, and when you listen to it another way it's... all twisted up and that drumbeat that never goes away... Anyway, I've never forgotten that, and now I really really want to read this. (And I find MT Anderson really compelling and had no idea they were writing nonfic, I'd have got it for that alone!)

I have a dim memory from what they told us in high school that they found Shostakovich's letters? or something? in the 80's or 90's and then they had to completely rehaul everything they thought, is that right?