A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
A Novel
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4.4 • 302 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • A searing debut about the transcendent power of love in wartime, hailed as “an absolute masterpiece” (Sarah Jessica Parker, Entertainment Weekly)—from the renowned author of Mercury Pictures Presents
“Extraordinary . . . a twenty-first century War and Peace.”—The New York Times Book Review
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE JOHN LEONARD AWARD WINNER • ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal
In the final days of December 2004, in a small rural village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa hides in the woods when her father is abducted by Russian forces. Fearing for her life, she flees with their neighbor Akhmed—a failed physician—to the bombed-out hospital, where Sonja, the one remaining doctor, treats a steady stream of wounded rebels and refugees and mourns her missing sister. Over the course of five dramatic days, Akhmed and Sonja reach back into their pasts to unravel the intricate mystery of coincidence, betrayal, and forgiveness that unexpectedly binds them and decides their fate.
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Chicago Tribune, NPR, Kansas City Star, San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Marra's sobering, complex debut intertwines the stories of a handful of characters at the end of the second war in bleak, apocalyptic Chechnya. Though the novel spans 11 years, the story traces five days in 2004 following the arrest of Dokka, a villager from the small Muslim village of Eldar. His eight-year-old daughter escapes, and is rescued by Dokka's friend Akhmed, the village doctor, who entrusts her to the care of Sonja, the lone remaining doctor at a nearby hospital. Why Akhmed feels responsible for Haava and chooses Sonja, an ethnic Russian keeping a vigil for her missing sister, as her guardian is one of many secrets; years of Soviet rule and the chaos of war have left these people unaccustomed to honesty. Marra, a Stegner Fellow, writes dense prose full of elegant detail about the physical and emotional destruction of occupation and war. Marra's deliberate withholding of narrative detail makes the characters opaque, until all is revealed, in a surprisingly hopeful way, but there's pleasure in reconstructing the meaning in reverse. As Akhmed says to Sonja, "The whole book is working toward the last page."
Customer Reviews
Very interesting
Very interesting book, really makes you think.
Paradigms
I discovered a world I never knew existed, and it revealed all of its Soul. A marvelous read.
Constellation of Vital Phenomina
Such eloquence, such wisdom, such pain, such joy! This is a masterpiece.