The first chapter opens with two young sisters-Alyona and Sophia Golosovskaya, ages 11 and 8-soaking up the sun one August afternoon at the edge of a bay in far eastern Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.

Julia Phillips does not make it easy on the reviewer charged with describing her book. I think we can all agree that the correct response to the ending of this book is a violently whispered, “ what the fuck.” In a story as propulsive as it is emotionally engaging, and through a young writer's virtuosic feat of empathy and imagination, this powerful novel provides a new understanding of the intricate bonds of family and community, in a Russia unlike any we have seen before.īeautifully written, thought-provoking, intense and cleverly wrought, this is the most extraordinary first novel from a mesmerising new talent.

We are transported to vistas of rugged beauty – densely wooded forests, open expanses of tundra, soaring volcanoes and the glassy seas that border Japan and Alaska – and into a region as complex as it is alluring, where social and ethnic tensions have long simmered, and where outsiders are often the first to be accused. Set on the remote Siberian peninsula of Kamchatka, Disappearing Earth draws us into the world of an astonishing cast of characters, all connected by an unfathomable crime. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across a tightly woven community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women. In the ensuing weeks, then months, the police investigation turns up nothing. One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the north-eastern edge of Russia, two sisters are abducted. We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. “Reckoning: The Epic Battle Against Sexual Abuse and Harassment” by Linda Hirshman “Let Me Not Be Mad: My Story of Unraveling Minds” by A.K. Here are the books discussed by The Times’s critics this week: So I was unusual enough that if I went to a fruit stand to buy fruit, someone would say, ‘Oh, you’re the American writer who has come to stay with us and write a book about Kamchatka.’ People really went out of their way to introduce me to the region and take care of me, and I am forever grateful for that.”Īlso on this week’s episode, Alexandra Alter has news from the publishing world and Dwight Garner, Parul Sehgal and Jennifer Szalai talk about the books they’ve recently reviewed. But in Kamchatka, which has a population of 400,000, I was one of I believe 10 Americans there. “In Moscow, for example, an American is not an unusual thing at all.

“I was extraordinarily lucky to be treated to so kindly and hospitably by everyone I met,” Phillips says.

Disappearing earth review