One of The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year
National Book Award Finalist
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize
Finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award
National Best Seller
"Splendidly imagined . . . Thrilling"
--Simon Winchester
"A genuine masterpiece"
--Gary Shteyngart
Spellbinding, moving--evoking a fascinating region on the other side of the world--this suspenseful and haunting story announces the debut of a profoundly gifted writer.One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two girls--sisters, eight and eleven--go missing. In the ensuing weeks, then months, the police investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across a tightly woven community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women.
Taking us through a year in Kamchatka,
Disappearing Earth enters with astonishing emotional acuity the worlds of a cast of richly drawn characters, all connected by the crime: a witness, a neighbor, a detective, a mother. 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.
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 brings us to a new understanding of the intricate bonds of family and community, in a Russia unlike any we have seen before.
"A genuine masterpiece." --Gary Shteyngart
For fans of Anthony Marra's A Constellation of Vital Phenomena and Téa Obreht's The Tiger's Wife: the kidnapping of two small girls on a remote peninsula in Russia sets in motion a propulsive, evocative, searingly original debut novel by a dazzling young writer.
One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka Peninsula at the northeastern tip of Russia, two girls--sisters, ages eight and eleven--go missing. The police investigation goes cold from the outset. In the girls' tightly-woven community, everyone must grapple with the loss. But the fear and danger is felt most profoundly among the women of this isolated place.
Taking us one chapter per month across a year on Kamchatka, this powerful novel connects the lives of characters changed by the sisters' abduction: a witness, a neighbor, a detective, a mother. Theirs is an ethnically diverse population in which racial tensions simmer, and so-called natives are often the first to be accused. As the story radiates from the peninsula's capital city to its rural north, we are brought to places of astonishing beauty: densely wooded forests, open expanses of tundra, soaring volcanoes, and glassy seas.
Disappearing Earth is a multifaceted story of the intimate lives of women--their vulnerabilities and perils; their loves, aspirations, and regrets; their desires and dreams. The novel speaks to the complex yet enduring bonds of community as it offers startlingly vivid portraits of people reaching out to one another and, sometimes, reaching back to save each other.
Gripping and tender, evoking with seamless authenticity an extraordinary place on the other side of the world, this thrilling novel with a haunting suspense at its center announces a profoundly gifted writer.
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