The novel “Embroidery on Stolen Fabric” is the story of Cinderella from the provinces, raised in a family hell where her father is aggressive and drunk, and her mother can’t protect her daughter and herself. Her grandmother, a village healer, passes on to the heroine the secrets of folk medicine, the gift of healing, and an unbreakable character. Fifteen-year-old Valentina studies in the regional center to become a masseuse and marries in Moscow. Unsuccessful marriages and a humiliating affair with a director force her to earn, sitting at the massage table, for her own apartment. Valentina attends an esoteric university, brings her mother back from the provinces, adopts a little girl who’s a drug addict, opens her own office, and accidentally ends up on television. In Ostankino, she unexpectedly meets a former minister—her long-ago love—and a social elevator carries Valentina to the very top. Life speeds up and complicates so much that Valentina feels as if she’s always acting in a movie, playing someone else’s role. The first part of the novel covers the period from the late 1950s to the 1990s…