Rating: ****
Tags: Fiction, General, Political, Family secrets, Literary, Family Life, Medical, Grandparent and child, Women physicians, Orphanages, Balkan Peninsula, Lang:en
Summary
Starred Review. The sometimes crushing power of myth, story,
and memory is explored in the brilliant debut of Obreht, the
youngest of the New Yorker's 20-under-40. Natalia Stefanovi, a
doctor living (and, in between suspensions, practicing) in an
unnamed country that's a ringer for Obreht's native Croatia,
crosses the border in search of answers about the death of her
beloved grandfather, who raised her on tales from the village
he grew up in, and where, following German bombardment in 1941,
a tiger escaped from the zoo in a nearby city and befriended a
mysterious deaf-mute woman. The evolving story of the tiger's
wife, as the deaf-mute becomes known, forms one of three
strands that sustain the novel, the other two being Natalia's
efforts to care for orphans and a wayward family who, to lift a
curse, are searching for the bones of a long-dead relative; and
several of her grandfather's stories about Gavran Gailé,
the deathless man, whose appearances coincide with catastrophe
and who may hold the key to all the stories that ensnare
Natalia. Obreht is an expert at depicting history through
aftermath, people through the love they inspire, and place
through the stories that endure; the reflected world she
creates is both immediately recognizable and a legend in its
own right. Obreht is talented far beyond her years, and her
unsentimental faith in language, dream, and memory is a
pleasure. (Mar.)
Starred Review Not even Obreht�s place on the
New Yorker�s current �20 under 40� list of
exceptional writers will prepare readers for the transporting
richness and surprise of this gripping novel of legends and
loss in a broken land. Drawing on the former
Yugoslavia�s fabled past and recent bloodshed,
Belgrade-born Obreht portrays two besieged doctors. Natalia is
on an ill-advised �good will� medical mission at
an orphanage on what is suddenly the �other
side,� now that war has broken out, when she learns that
her grandfather, a distinguished doctor forced out of his
practice by ethnic divides, has died far from home. She is
beset by memories, particularly of her grandfather taking her
to the zoo to see the tigers. We learn the source of his
fascination in mesmerizing flashbacks, meeting the village
butcher, the deaf-mute Muslim woman he married, and a tiger who
escaped the city zoo after it was bombed by the Germans. Of
equal mythic mystery is the story of the �deathless
man.� Moments of breathtaking magic, wildness, and
beauty are paired with chilling episodes in which superstition
overrides reason; fear and hatred smother compassion; and
inexplicable horror rules. Every word, every scene, every
thought is blazingly alive in this many-faceted, spellbinding,
and rending novel of death, succor, and remembrance. --Donna
SeamanFrom Publishers Weekly
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