Russell Baker

A life of purpose and contented bourgeois respectability lies before young physician Yury Zhivago as he marries Tonya, his dearest friend. But a glimpse of an ethereally beautiful girl--and the power of the popular uprising boiling over in the streets of Moscow--take his life on a very different course. Betrayed by her mother, and by her own awakened sensuality, Lara loathes what she is becoming in the grip of the manipulative Komarovsky. Marriage to Pasha, the earnest partisan who has always adored her, promises to be her salvation.

Changed by his war experiences and time with Lara, Zhivago returns home to his wife and family in Moscow to find that conditions there are dramatically altered. Rather than face starvation in the city, the family embarks on a long and arduous journey east to take refuge at an abandoned estate in the Urals. A chance meeting with Lara changes everything for Zhivago. Agonizing over his betrayal to Tonya, he tries to break away from Lara and return to his family, only to be sucked into the bloody struggle between the Whites and the Reds.

Polly Montdore has grown into a haughty beauty, aloof to everyone, but dear to the Radlett girls. As her coming-out ball and the following year progress, Polly and her confidante Linda Radlett pursue matrimony--but not with the men their parents selected.

Changed by his war experiences, Zhivago returns home to his wife and family in Moscow, where conditions there are dramatically altered.