The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine

Katherine Marsh’s novel The Lost Year was originally published by Macmillan Publishing Group in 2023. The middle grade novel is inspired by Marsh’s Ukrainian family history and was a finalist for the National Book Award. The novel follows 13-year-old Matthew, who is struggling to adjust to the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown. Stuck at home with his mom and 100-year-old great-grandmother, GG, he learns about GG’s harrowing experiences in the Ukraine’s Holodomor and begins researching his family history. His eagerness to make sense of his relatives’ suffering amidst his own pandemic-related troubles inspires the novel’s thematic explorations of The Impact of the Past on the Present, How Family Stories Shape Identity, and The Challenges of Widespread Crises.

This guide refers to the 2024 First Square Fish paperback edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The novel and this guide contain references to and descriptions of famine and genocide.

Plot Summary

The novel is divided into titled chapters that alternate between the three main characters’ perspectives and take place in two parallel timelines. Matthew’s chapters are set in 2020 in Leonia, New Jersey. Mila Lomachenko’s chapters are set in 1932 and 1933 in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Helen Lomachenko’s chapters are set in 1932 and 1933 in Brooklyn, New York.

The novel opens in 2020 Leonia, New Jersey. First-person narrator Matthew is 13 years old and trying to adjust to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. He spends his time taking online classes and playing video games. He lives with his mom and 100-year-old great-grandmother, GG. He loves Mom and GG but misses his dad, who is stuck overseas on a journalism assignment.

One day, Matthew’s mom tells Matthew that he has to help GG sort through the boxes in her room. Matthew dreads the chore but secretly hopes that the boxes are filled with ancient treasure. He’s disappointed when he discovers that they only contain old photographs, papers, letters, journals, and documents. Matthew doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with the boxes because GG gets upset when he asks questions about them.

Matthew calls Dad for advice on his situation. After the call, Matthew tries to open up to GG so that she’ll open up to him. GG finally agrees to tell Matthew her story and begins describing her life in Ukraine in the 1930s.

The narrative shifts into the past, alternating excerpts from Mila Lomachenko’s and Helen Lomachenko’s first-person accounts. In 1932, Mila is living a privileged life in Kyiv, Ukraine, with her father, Lev Lomachenko. Lev works for the communist party and teaches Mila everything that she knows about her family and country. One day, a starving girl named Nadiya shows up on Mila’s doorstep, claiming to be Mila’s cousin and Lev’s niece. Mila doesn’t understand because Papa is supposedly an orphan with no siblings or living family. She wants to believe that Nadiya is lying, but she also feels bad for her. She tracks her down on the street one day and brings her to her piano teacher Anna Mikhailovna’s house for protection. Anna could get in trouble with the secret police for housing Nadiya because she is a kulak, or member of the wealthy peasant class, which Stalin says is ruining the nation. However, Anna agrees to help Mila and Nadiya anyway.

Over the course of the following weeks, Mila regularly visits Nadiya at Anna’s house. The girls get to know each other, and Mila starts to believe Nadiya’s story. Then one day, she finds a letter from Nadiya’s mother to Lev in his office, begging him to help her family so they don’t starve to death. Mila is heartbroken: Her father’s cruelty led to her aunt and cousins’ deaths.

One day, Mila discovers that Anna and Nadiya have been taken away by the secret police and are missing. Shortly thereafter, the police arrest Lev, too, and put Mila into a local orphanage. At the orphanage, Mila reconnects with Nadiya. However, Nadiya contracts typhus and dies not long after. To protect herself, Mila assumes Nadiya’s identity. When her uncle, Vanya, arrives from the US to collect Nadiya, Mila pretends to be her cousin. Vanya takes her back to Brooklyn to live with his family.

Helen is thrilled when Mila arrives in New York. Ever since learning about her cousins’ situation in Ukraine, she has been desperate to help. Her first-person portions of the narrative depict her attempts to tell her family’s story and to deliver them from the Holodomor.

GG tells Matthew that she is in fact Mila and not Nadiya. He is the first person to whom she’s revealed her secret. Matthew decides to record her story and makes a video documentary about her, Nadiya, and Helen. At the end of the video, GG goes on camera and identifies herself as Mila Lomachenko. The next morning, GG dies, and Matthew shows Mom their project. Mom is sad to say goodbye to her grandmother, but thankful that Matthew preserved her story.

On GG’s real birthday, Matthew and Mom visit her grave. They bring her chocolates and talk to her in the cemetery. Matthew hopes that she is in heaven with Nadiya and Helen.