Monday, May 11, 2020

Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips


First Line: Sophia, sandals off, was standing at the water's edge.

One August afternoon in Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka peninsula, two sisters aged eight and eleven go missing. Weeks pass, then months, and the police turn up nothing. During the next year, echoes of the disappearances reverberate throughout a close-knit community, the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women.

Julia Phillips' enthralling Disappearing Earth is told from many points of view, and it is a mother lode of riches for readers who aren't put off by the fact that the narrator changes with each successive chapter.

I learned so much about the Kamchatka peninsula-- and was led to discover even more information through additional reading. The setting, containing three active volcanoes within sight of the major town of Petropavlovsk, is stark and memorable. Traveling through a fire-ravaged wooded area, the mother of the two missing girls looks out the car window and sees her grief transformed into landscape: "The long tracks of dead forest looked like thousands of bones pushed up from their graves."

As the story runs its course from one person to the next-- all connected by the abduction of the two little girls-- we learn how the area has changed since the collapse of the USSR, how poaching has affected the ecology, how the indigenous peoples and LGBT are treated, and how difficult it can be for native people to live outside their own culture.

So far, I've concentrated on how much I learned from reading this book. Now it's time to concentrate on the story itself. Since each successive narrator is connected in some way to the missing girls, the sisters were never far from my mind. The scene describing their abduction was chilling, and as the months passed, any hope I had for their safe return died an agonizing death. There was what I call a "light bulb" moment when I knew the identity of the kidnapper, but of course, everyone in the book ignored it. And the ending? I can't decide whether to call it "jaw-dropping" or a "punch in the gut." Totally unexpected.

Disappearing Earth is an amazing piece of storytelling, one that I highly recommend you to try.


Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
eISBN: 9780525520429
Alfred A. Knopf © 2019
eBook, 272 pages

Literary Mystery, Standalone
Rating: A+
Source: Purchased from Amazon. 

15 comments:

  1. I am so glad you liked this book. I found it fascinating, and then did research on Kamchatka, as you did. I loved reading about the Even people, one of the 40 Indigenous peoples in Siberia and Kamchatka. And also, read about the longtime reindeer herding of the Even people.
    I read that the Soviets gave them a written language and eliminated illiteracy.
    The ending had me gobsmacked! I will say no more as to not give away spoilers. I had to read some reviews to clarify it.
    This was truly a book that I learned from, and which led me to learn more.

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  2. An intriguing mystery and the unknown background adds to the suspense. Thanks for the review.

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  3. I love it when a book makes me so curious that I look for more information on a topic, Cathy. And this does sound like a great story - I mean the mystery itself. I don't mind shifting narrators, either. For me, that can work very well if it's done well.

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    1. It worked well for me, but I realize that it's not to everyone's taste.

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  4. You've sold me on this one and I don't think I've noticed too many reviews of it around. I've been aware of it, but not in the way you've made me aware. Good job!

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  5. So glad it made your top 2020 books. I've read four of them so far.

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    1. The Hollows, The Lantern Men, Deadland, and Disappearing Earth?

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  6. I haven't gotten The Lantern Men yet, no library. I read The Hollows, November Road, Deadland and Disappearing Earth.

    But now I have Paretsky's Deadline to read, am finishing Kingsolver's Unsheltered which is taking awhile, but interesting. A lot about botany, Darwin's findings and current-day economic problems in a family. Two different time periods, today and during Grant's presidency. The section about the past is an ode to women scientists and to Darwin and science.

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    1. My memory was off by one, but I will say that November Road was my alternate pick.

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  7. I read November Road last year and liked it, unusual noir. I believe it was picked up by a studio to be turned into a movie. If they do it right and have a good cast, it would make a gripping movie.
    And, I will break down and buy The Lantern Men soon if the librayr is still closed. A very close friend and his family own a bookstore and I should buy books from them as they are closed now in Minnesota. i'm worried about costs for overseas books, but I want to support them.

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