THE LAST QUARTER OF THE MOON

An elderly woman tells the story of her life among the Evenki people in northern China.

The novel opens with the unnamed, 90-year-old narrator explaining why she has declined to move out of her mountain dwelling with most of the rest of her family: “I won’t sleep in a room where I can’t see the stars. All my life I’ve passed the night in their company. If I see a pitch-dark ceiling when I awake from my dreams, my eyes will go blind.” The woman and her family are Evenki people—an Indigenous ethnic group living mostly in northern China and Russia—and they sustain themselves by herding reindeer and trading pelts and antlers for bullets, cloths, and cooking supplies. The narrator tells the story of her life growing up in the mountains with her tight-knit clan, including her parents, Linke and Tamara; her siblings, Lena and Luni; and her uncle Nidu the Shaman, the clan’s “Headman,” who fascinates the narrator with his connection to the spiritual world. The narrator has fond memories of her childhood, but it was far from idyllic: Death is a constant presence in the novel, claiming two of the narrator’s siblings among other family members. The Evenki are forced to deal with the Japanese invasion of China, with the men made to train with the occupying army; after the occupation ends, they have to contend with loggers chopping down the forest in which they live. The author’s writing is unsparing and poignant; she writes ably about the tragedies that mark the narrator’s life as well as her love for her family: “If I am an old tree that has lived through the wind and the rain without falling to the earth, then the children and grandchildren at my knees are branches on that tree. No matter how old I am, those branches continue to flourish.” This is an exceptionally pretty novel and a fascinating look at a people that not many U.S. readers know about.

Often unbearably sad, but beautifully told.