Kseniya Melnick's Snow in May
Normally I am way into interconnected short stories, but these didn't really come together for me. They center on the various denizens of a small town in Siberia, formerly the site of one of Stalin's forced-labor camps. The stories go back and forth in time over a fifty year period, so we see different generations of the same family from different perspectives, which I liked. Like I said, I just didn't think it was as cohesive as it could have been, and the final story (about a famous gay opera singer sent to the Gulag) was clearly supposed to be really powerful, but never quite hit those heights for me. There is a lot here to like--it's very atmospheric, and the stories told from the point of view of young girls are especially strong--but, yeah, not quite hitting the mark. B.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be available on May 13th.
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