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The story is set in Chechnya across two wars, from 1994 to 2004. Sonja, an ethnic Russian, tries to maintain order at the hospital, but with no other doctors and one nurse left, the best they can do is treat the wounded and be a safe haven for women to give birth. Arriving there is Akhmed, an ethnic Chechnyen, who claims to have medical experience, but not much. He offers to help, as long as Sonja will provide safe haven to Havaa, the daughter of his friend Dokka, who’s been taken by the feds, and Akhmed knows Havaa is next.
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Ramzan lives with his father Khassan, a former academic, who is horrified by Ramzan’s actions but really has no other alternatives. And while it would be best for Akhmed to flee, his sick wife keeps him tied to the village.
So the setup will remind you of several other books. Like The Tiger’s Wife, the book is set in a war-torn country in Eastern Europe, with a doctor-like hero. Tea Obreht’s book is more post-war, and though you see the ravages of war, there’s a lot more brutality in Marra’s novel and while there’s the same sense of fanciful imagery, Obreht’s is more magical realism while Marra’s is more grounded in reality. Another book we read in the group that is drawing comparisons is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun.
While A Constellation of Vital Phenomena didn’t quite explode on contact the way we hoped, it’s had a very steady sale, and a number of yearend best-ofs and an assortment of awards have helped its momentum. It won the John Leonard first fiction prize from the National Book Critics Circle, the first Carla Coen literary prize (she was the longtime co-owner of Washington's Politics and Prose), and the Discover Great Writers award for fiction from Barnes and Noble. Whatever it takes!
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J2 also liked it, though she warned that it was hard to read when you’re tired. The first word that came to L.’s mind was depressing, but she didn’t quite mean that in a negative way. It was well-written, compassionate, with dark humor, but there’s no way around it; the story highlights that there’s a lot of evil in the world.
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C. noted she doesn’t normally read war stories but this was different as it followed the civilians, who are usually marginalized in such a story, but are often the big victims. N. probably was the one naysayer in the group. She was also depressed by the story, and was left confused by some of the plot jumps.
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Of course a conversation wouldn't be complete without a word on cover treatment. For the paperback, the publisher moved away from the stars in the trees look in the hardcover and went with the bright blue suitcase in an battle-scarred field. Most of the attendees liked the paperback cover just fine. I wonder if the book wouldn’t have sold better with an emotionally charged picture of Havaa on the cover. I’d so much rather not see that, but I wonder if it would have helped sales.
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We spent a lot of time talking about Sonja and Natasha, and the family dynamics that seemed to play out between them. I wondered to the group whether the white slavery subplot was perhaps one too many horrors inflicted on the reader for one book. Their answer was fairly unanimous—it’s a part of war and should be there. Even escape is often no escape.
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Is this book for everyone? No, of course not. For book clubs that are serious about discussion, however, and aren’t afraid to travel to dark places, but also need that emotional connection to help them handle the story, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is perfect.
Charles McGrath profiles Marra in The New York Times. Marra writes about his relationship with Chechnya in The Wall Street Journal.
*It turns out Anthony Marra was a student of Adam Johnson.
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