Name: Allison Dempsey's review of Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
Item: Disappearing Earth
Rating: 4
Author: Allison Dempsey

Julia Phillips

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 novel

Disappearing Earth

Beautifully written, thought-provoking, intense and cleverly wrought, this is the most extraordinary first novel from a mesmerising new talent. One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the north-eastern edge of Russia, two sisters are abducted. 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. 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. 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 provides a new understanding of the intricate bonds of family and community, in a Russia unlike any we have seen before. Praise for Disappearing Earth "A genuine masterpiece, but one that is easily consumed in a feverish stay-up-all-night bout of reading pleasure." Gary Shteyngart “Suspenseful, original and compelling, Disappearing Earth is a strange and haunting voyage into a strange and haunting world.' Simon Sebag-Montefiore, author of The Romanovs “Julia Phillips is at once a careful cartographer and gorgeous storyteller... . A mystery of two missing girls burns at the center of this astonishing debut, and the complexity of ethnicity, gender, hearth and kin illuminates this question and many more.” Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage 'A knock-out... .The stitches of Phillips’s language make you go, Damn, that’s good.' The Los Angeles Review of Books 'A superb debut.' New York Times

Kate

Ella Patterson

Allison Dempsey

Read like a real Russian novel. I really enjoyed reading about a place I had never heard of before. Only wish that each character had been given more than one chapter.

Shona Tiger

** spoiler alert **
           A terribly hard read. Knew the [answer] about halfway through, but those last chapters were still gut-wrenching.

Jeannette Ordas

I really enjoyed a lot of this book, but as every chapter has different characters and often some of the incidental characters pop up in new chapters, I found it to be a bit of work to keep everything straight. Still, it was a story set in a fascinating world of north-east Russia with lots of Indigenous cultures that I wasn't familiar with. And it really showed how isolating and how alone many of the women in the book were and how disappearing could really just happen in the blink of an eye.

Amy Thibodeau

Queena Li

Read if you enjoy deeply relatable stories about women living in fierce and unfamiliar places, told in the style of Lauren Groff's "Florida", and reminiscent of Michael Palin's "Full Circle" travelogue in the Russian Far East.

Emma Friedheim

Fascinating structure (I knew it would be confusing going in, so I was prepared mentally), really interesting depiction of life in Far East Russia (especially re: indigenous people), excellent writing, and all wrapped up in a mystery! I certainly didn't ~love~ this, but overall found it to be a very solid book deserving of praise and respect. Not at all what I expected when we chose this as our next Book Club book.

jiaqi kang

** spoiler alert **
           really glad there was a happy ending :)

Jeff Brown 

I was truly impressed with this book. It was a take on the missing-person mystery that I have never seen before. It certainly isn't a procedural detective story -- it's more about the women of the region that are directly or indirectly connected to the missing girls (GR has a very good synopsis of the story). There is a ripple effect that starts pulling these people together more and more as the story begins its final chapters. The description of the mother's increasing anxiety was compelling and relatable.

The author really brought out two areas in the novel that really makes it distinct from most mysteries. There is a strong sense of place throughout the book, making the peninsula (which I wouldn't think most people know much about) another character in the story. Also, there are social issues that are brought forth that are integral to the story without being preachy at all. It deals with the relative wealth of the larger city compared to the near-poverty of the north. There are issues with sexuality, native racism, the politics of the large vs. small town dynamics, and the struggles of a rural area following the Soviet regime that have been comparatively adapted to in larger, more developed cities in Russia. 

I wish I had read this earlier because I would have cast my vote for it and maybe I would have pushed it into the GR finals! Probably not. :)

Very highly recommended!

priya

2.5 stars

“Natasha has said those things, yet repeated by Anfisa they were foul. They made her siblings into caricatures. Anfisa did not know.”

“Natasha pushed her nose into her daughter’s round cheek. ‘Do you want to watch TV?’ There. Snot sucked back up into little sinuses. Cheburashka cartoons could undo any tragedy.”

Nadine 

This book got so many rave reviews but it took forever and going back to the reviews to motivate me to continue. A frustrating book where if you don’t understand the overall arc you spend most the time thinking “what the?” And who are these new sets of characters and when the heck will anything get resolved. 
Read it for an understanding of an area & people seldom written about (in English)

Lauren Attaway

A Slow-Burn Non-Mystery Mystery. There are a lot of big emotional moments in reading this, just not my kind of book somehow.

Caitlin Snyder

Really well written and engrossing but this is not a happy book!

Karen Shimek

Jill Swan

This is one of those books that I understand is good but I never managed to get into. I had to work to read it the whole time. It's a well crafted story- each month is told from the point of view of a different character in a remote peninsula in Russia, and how each character relates even tangentially to the disappearance of two young girls. I know it's a good book. I just didn't love it.

Jordan Robinson

Paulina 

Jacklyn O’Brien 

This book was written as each month from a different perspective in the small Russian town. I wanted to know how their stories connected with the crime that began the novel, but it never really happened. I enjoyed some of the characters in the beginning, but as I realized that I wasn't going to be hoarding from them again I got disappointed and disinterested. I was excited to read about a book taking place in Russia, but I didn't enjoy this one.

Kaylah Rodriguez

I really really loved this. I was worried that the format would just feel like an agonizing series of cliffhangers and that I would be left wanting more, but that was not the case at all for me. While I surely would have loved to spend more time with each of the characters, I was more than satisfied with the amount of closure I got at the end of it all. Really a gorgeously written story and a stunning portrait of Kamchatka and the communities that live there. One to read if you enjoy quiet, character-driven stories that still bring a strong dose of emotional intensity, or if you love mysteries but are ready for a fresh take on one where you might not get every i dotted or every t crossed, but rather get to examine the story from many different angles as your perspective expands.

Jessica Smith

Not a conventional mystery novel – while the first chapter describes two young girls going missing, every chapter thereafter is from the perspective of a different person on the remote Kamchatka Peninsula. Most of them don't know the girls at all, and as such the news of their abduction becomes just part of the background noise to these many different characters' lives (until the last chapter, from the perspective of the girls' mother).

There is in fact a resolution to the mystery, but that's not the main reason to read this novel. Its real strong point is its elaborate depiction of this remote and troubled part of the world. Through its wide range of perspectives, a number of different issues are touched upon: misogyny, racism, the legacy of the Soviet period and the post-Soviet economic crisis, homophobia, elitism, the difficulties of being young in a remote area (the lack of job opportunities, or a large enough pool of people to date that you don't “have” to settle for a less-than-ideal option…). It's very interesting and skilfully done. Don't go into this expecting a real mystery novel, but if you like literary fiction exploring social issues in different parts of the world, this will make a great read.

Ella Patterson &
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips

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Ella Patterson &Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips

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Ella Patterson &
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips