I do not remember why this book was on my reading list- perhaps a favourable review somewhere, or a friend’s recommendation. Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskly on the southeastern coast of the wild and isolated,1200 kilometre long, Kamchatka peninsula in far eastern Russia seems like a peculiar setting for this Brooklyn author’s debut modern novel.
The apparent kidnapping of two young girls by a mysterious man with a black SUV is introduced in the first chapter, then clues as to what happened to them are finally introduced in the penultimate chapter. Each of the ten intervening chapters covers events in consecutive months with the members of four families. Although the list of main characters at the front, and a map of the peninsula, are helpful, it is still difficult to keep the characters and locations straight, and much of the narrative seems unrelated to the main plot. That there is a main plot at all is far from clear, and there are so many loose threads that the fabric of the story is in danger of completely unravelling. The last four page chapter does nothing to tie the previous 252 pages together and can only be described as bizarre.
Some quotes may help me convince you about the abundant literary gobbledegook.
“That sick mix swirled in her chest.”
“Inside her was white and smooth, a frozen landscape, solid bone.”
“Her heart had been fragile, its chambers shifting as easily and dangerously as volcanic earth.”
“A cord of tension extended from Zoya’s eyes, her sinuses, the back of her throat, through her body, out her ribs, to the men.”
I should have suspected that this book would not appeal to me. The author is a graduate of a creative writing school, and the lavish “advanced praise” on the back cover is from seven other novelists not familiar to me and not identified as to affiliations or their own books. Is this some kind of incestuous cabal of elitist writers dedicated to promoting each other? Or am I becoming too cynical in questioning books with ‘advanced praise’? Or did I just miss the whole point of this story?
The Passionate Reader 