ATOMIC ANNA
Barenbaum, Rachel Grand Central Publishing (448 pp.) $28.00 | April 5, 2022 978-1-5387-3486-5
KIRKUS REVIEWS
BEST INDIE BOOK OF 2021
y o u n g a d u lt
A Soviet scientist responsible for the Chernobyl disaster invents a time machine so she can change not only that fatal accident, but also her own destiny. Anna Berkova grew up applying her brilliant scientific and mathematical brain to questions of nuclear power. A star of the Soviet Union, she designed the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, taking care to work through numerous safety protocols. Of course, it’s not enough, and when the reactor melts down on April 26, 1986, her life is only saved by an accidental jump through time. She finds herself in 1992, on top of a mountain, holding a bleeding woman who claims to be the daughter she gave away as an infant and who tells Anna she must use her time-traveling power both to stop Chernobyl and save her own granddaughter. From this striking, emotional beginning—which gives rise to a thousand questions—the novel follows three generations of Anna’s family, itself jumping around in time to explore the lives of Anna, her daughter, Molly, and her granddaughter, Raisa. All three struggle to find their places in the world as talented, strong, independent women, and all three will play a pivotal role in Anna’s quest to change the future—or is it the past?—not only to protect those who perish in the nuclear disaster, but to empower, and ultimately save the lives of, her family. In Barenbaum’s skillful hands, a complex concept and structure work beautifully, as the novel is slowly constructed one painstakingly detailed chapter at a time. The book is an incredible achievement with a heartfelt human theme: It’s never too late to let go of psychological baggage and heal past wounds. As ambitious as a Greek tragedy and just as lyrical and unflinching.
LUCKY BREAKS
JOSHUA SENTER’S
Criticall y Acclaimed NOVE L
Belorusets, Yevgenia Trans. by Eugene Ostashevsky New Directions (160 pp.) $14.95 paper | March 1, 2022 978-0-8112-2984-5
STILL THE NIGHT CALL
A debut collection depicting women who live on the margins of Ukrainian society. “I’ve never felt a sense of security in Ukraine,” explains the narrator of one story. “It wasn’t safe for a girl or woman there.” Indeed, a sense of unease pervades every corner of this book, which spotlights women affected directly and indirectly by the violence in Eastern Ukraine. (The contours of the conflict are anything but straightforward: “Russia is waging war against Ukraine;
ISBN:
#978-1-7375856-0-2
www.RoubidouxPress.com AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE NOW
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kirkus.com
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fiction
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1 february 2022
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