Contents
The collection includes books that are completely different in mood. In one, two women from different eras meet through the century, but with similar fates. In the other, we, together with the hero, go from deep depression to finding ourselves. The third will allow you to travel to a cozy Irish village. And the fourth – dystopia – makes you think about the problems of power, freedom and a possible scenario for the future.
“Every hundred years”
Anna Matveeva, Editing by Elena Shubina
Anna Matveeva’s novel “Every Hundred Years” draws in the intricacies of numerous storylines. Sometimes it seems that all the semantic cards have already been revealed, but behind the core of the story that was found, there is another angle.
In the center of the story are two women, two difficult destinies. Ksana was born in the late USSR into a family of Sverdlovsk intellectuals, Ksenia Lyovshina – in a noble nest a hundred years earlier. The diaries of the late Lyovshina accidentally end up with little Ksana. Reading them, the girl begins to feel a special connection with a distant namesake.
The heroines are really similar – both are moderately closed, unsure of themselves, impressionable and secretly write in diaries about everything that offends them. And it hurts a lot. Ksana worries about a maniac on the city streets, her father’s bigamy, her brother, who is madly in love with her habalist friend. Ksenia is weighed down by inconsistency with standards, lack of friends and impending poverty. Ahead of them looming global cataclysms: the revolution and the Civil War, the nineties and perestroika. Breakage of epochs and destruction of habitual values.
Xana and Xenia quickly find themselves in a chaotic flow of life where there are no clear rules anymore. But the heroines, against all odds, stick to their ideals. One endures the windiness and indifference of her husband, endures the death of children from wars and famine. Another pays a huge debt for years for the crime of her step-but beloved son. Why so much selflessness? Xana and Xenia are not endowed with natural stamina. They overcome thorns because they do not forget about the stars.
Both still enthusiastically keep diaries, remember the aspirations of youth for scientific and creative research. Their romantic spirit turns out to be paradoxically salutary in difficult times. It teaches you to hope, empathize and dream, it gives you the opportunity not to become stale – to forgive those who admitted mistakes and can be useful in the future. The author seems to remind: an impressionable nature means not only weakness, but also strength – the strength of a special sensitivity to the world.
“White Monkey, Black Screen”
Olga Anikina, Limbus-press
A poignant personal story of a doctor who needed help himself. Yuri Khramtsov is not a performer of deeds, but a small man with a big hole in his soul. Having lost his mother early, married unsuccessfully and did not make a brilliant career, it is increasingly difficult for him to get along with people and with his modest share of an ordinary diagnostician. It comes to deep depression, from which a psychiatrist colleague helps. A book about therapy, about getting rid of loneliness, turns out to be therapeutic for the reader as well – it magically transmits the contemplative calmness that the narrator gradually acquires.
“Here it is, happiness”
Niall Williams, Phantom Press
Moments of happiness seem elusive to us. But they are still able to settle in the memory with bright, warming visions and support on dark days. About such a collection of experienced joys is a novel by the Irishman Niall Williams. An aging Noel Crow describes his youth in the village of Faha. As he lived with his grandparents, he was looking for a vocation, he witnessed the unusual love of an elderly electrician and the widow of a pharmacist. The carefree atmosphere of a deep province, as well as the virtuoso-rhythmic, playful style of the narrator make Fahu the realm of an eternal holiday. The one who – like Hemingway’s Paris – is always with you.
“Antibodies”
Kirill Kutalov, Publishing Solutions
Until 2020, Kirill Kutalov worked as an art director and occasionally wrote prose. The pandemic changed everything, because of which I had to quit. On the one hand, self-isolation and a vague future, on the other hand, time for creativity. Antibodies began as a pandemic diary that the author kept on Facebook. Observations of the empty Moscow were gradually overgrown with heroes, and … as a result, a dystopian novel was born.
The state is ruled by artificial intelligence, tight control is everywhere, drones are watching the residents. Then a mysterious virus appears. Being much more dangerous than the coronavirus we know, it quickly penetrates everywhere, including in the circles of those in power, stopping the usual order. The strict system collapses, and adventurers and criminals enter the arena.
Antibodies are not just an attempt to dispel the myth about the benefits of a “hard hand”, but also a parable convincingly close to reality about social disunity as a consequence of authoritarianism. Indeed, in order to unite in the face of an invisible threat, responsibility is needed, which is brought up not by coercion, but by freedom. The author’s love for freedom was also reflected in the way to readers: he independently published the book on the Ridero platform. Antibodies have been noticed and even included in the short list of the Critical Academy of the “NOS” award.