An illuminating but uneven tale about a victim of Soviet repression.
A newly religious man in Soviet Armenia is sent to a psychiatric institution for deprogramming in this novel.
In 1982, Stephan Korsan lives in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, a satellite of the Soviet Union. His environs are bleak—he resides in a crumbling, state-constructed apartment building with his parents, considered “filthy rich” because each of the three has a bedroom. He knows there is more to life—something “magnificent” and “desirable”—but he is never inclined to think of this in spiritual terms. Then one day he bumps into Karo, a girl he once knew, and she introduces him to a different dimension of life, one that transcends the body and makes him feel part of a “Big Plan” rather than a shiftless, isolated atom. He absorbs the Hare Krishna philosophy with great enthusiasm—he quits smoking cigarettes and becomes a vegetarian, much to his mother’s bewildered consternation. She reports him to the KGB, and he is involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, where he is physically abused, pumped with drugs, and inveigled to recant his beliefs. Kasian deftly combines a recollection of his own experiences with elements of fictional invention, painting a clear, harrowing picture of Soviet psychiatric institutions, which harshly treated all forms of political and ideological divergence and rebellion as mental illness. But the plot meanders confusingly, and the author’s prose is sometimes inclined to melodrama. While in the hospital, Stephan reflects on his fate: “Should I continue to trick these demonic doctors? This wouldn’t be a cleansing exercise then! And what kind of demons can be tricked so easily? What did the first Christians do when the wild animals were unleashed on them?” Despite its vivid insights into the brainwashing that a Soviet police state required, the story finally becomes a bit exhausting.
An illuminating but uneven tale about a victim of Soviet repression.Pub Date: July 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-228-85743-3
Page Count: 226
Publisher: Tellwell Talent
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Thoughtful and at times harrowing, this novel is a successful blend of historical fiction and modern feminism.
Three generations of women struggle against the bounds of patriarchy in this debut novel.
Over the course of centuries, the Weyward women of Crows Beck in Cumbria, England, have shared a common gift: the ability to connect deeply with and seemingly communicate with nature, particularly animals. But they are also all victimized and controlled by men in a variety of ways. In 1619, healer Altha is put on trial for witchcraft after having been seen near a field where a farmer is trampled by his cows and because her own mother was suspected of being a witch due to her involvement in treating people in the village. Hundreds of years later, in the early 1940s, Violet Ayres chafes against the heavy-handed scrutiny and control of her father and struggles to learn more about her mother, Elizabeth Weyward, who died under mysterious circumstances when Violet was young. In the present day, Kate Ayres has fled her abusive live-in boyfriend before he can discover that she’s pregnant, taking refuge in her great-aunt Violet’s cottage as she attempts to rebuild her life and protect herself and her baby. Although the women's connection to nature at times feels like an unneeded dose of the supernatural in this already gripping novel, the ways in which they are subjected to the whims and cruelties of male dominance are chilling and realistic. Readers probably won't be especially surprised by some of the twists of the story, but this is nonetheless an engaging novel that captures the ways patriarchy has sought to limit women for all of history and the ways women have found to carve out freedom for themselves.
Thoughtful and at times harrowing, this novel is a successful blend of historical fiction and modern feminism.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781250280800
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
Though disappointing in its execution, this well-researched book addresses a momentous period rarely covered in fiction.
Hua’s ambitious second novel explores China’s Cultural Revolution through the eyes of an idealistic teenage girl.
On the day of Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, Mei Xiang, a waitress in a San Francisco Chinatown restaurant, recalls the incredible journey that took her from a remote, impoverished village to the heart of political power in Communist China. When Secretary Sun, a Party official, arrives in the summer of 1965 to recruit young girls for mysterious duties in the capital, the patriotic 15-year-old Mei is so eager to become a model revolutionary that she subtly blackmails the village headman into guaranteeing her selection. Arriving at Beijing’s walled Lake Palaces, once home to emperors and now the Chairman’s residence, Mei soon learns from Teacher Fan that her job will be to dance with the Party elites. That first evening she attracts the Chairman’s attention, earning the enmity of another ambitious girl, Midnight Chang. The quick-witted Mei soon becomes the Chairman’s lover and confidante; when he recruits her to trick and undermine his political rival, she seizes the opportunity for revolutionary action with fervor. But her doubts grow as Mei observes the harrowing violence and brutality sweeping the country. Inspired by documentary footage of Mao surrounded by adoring young women and drawing on the life of his personal secretary, Zhang Yufeng, Hua vividly captures the cult of personality that enabled the manipulation of girls like Mei. But her narrative pace is surprisingly slow; most of the action takes place within the isolated confines of the Lake Palaces, where Mei obsesses over her rivalries with Midnight Chang and Madame, the Chairman’s wife. Mei’s narrow viewpoint also limits the novel’s emotional impact, as she remains detached from the traumatic events of the Cultural Revolution until the contrived climax.
Though disappointing in its execution, this well-researched book addresses a momentous period rarely covered in fiction.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-399-17881-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
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