Disappearing Earth: A novel

Disappearing Earth: A novel

<b><b><b><b><b><b><b><b><b><b>One of <i>The New York Times </i>10 Best Books of the Year</b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b><br><b><b><b><b><b><b><b><br>A Best Book of 2019: <i>Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post</i>, NPR, <i>Kirkus, AV Club</i></b></b></b></b></b><br><br>National Book Award Finalist<br></b>Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard prize<br></b>Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize<b><br><br>National Best Seller<br></b><br></b><i><br></i></b>"Splendidly imagined . . . Thrilling"<b><b> --Simon Winchester</b><br></b>"A genuine masterpiece"<b> --Gary Shteyngart<br><br><b>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.</b></b><br><br>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.<br><br>Taking us through a year in Kamchatka, <i>Disappearing Earth </i>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. <br><br>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.