The lack of light A novel of Georgia

Haratischwili (The Eighth Life) enchants with this monumental novel that follows four friends in Georgia from the end of the Soviet era to the near present. Mercurial, fearless Dina; flirtatious, free-spirited Nene; quiet, studious Ira; and artistic, observant Keto grow up together in the capital city of Tbilisi. In 1987 they are 14 and, with Dina as their ringleader, full of mischief and dreams. Their brothers, however, have no real ambitions or prospects other than small-time extortion and drug trafficking. Nene's uncle Tapora, the local mob boss, controls much of the city, and Keto's brother Rati and his crew begin scheming to take over some of Tapora's territory. Dina, always a shutterbug, becomes a photographer for the Sunday News and covers the war in Abkhazia. In 2019, the three surviving friends reunite in Brussels at a posthumous retrospective of Dina's photographs. It would be a spoiler to reveal the dramatic and tragic circumstances of her death, which adds poignancy to Haratischwili's explosive and intimate tale of the women's struggle to not only survive but thrive. Amid the fast-paced story, the author makes room for the friends' satisfying reckoning with their history of betrayals and shifting alliances. Readers will find this irresistible. (Sept.)

Haratischwili's (My Soul Twin) compelling story follows four women growing up in post-Soviet Tbilisi in the 1980s and '90s. One of them is narrator Keto, who gives her perspective on their friendship, although not always reliably. The women's youthful bond survives civil war and instability, until an act of betrayal and the tragic death of one of them sends the survivors in different directions. In 2019, after decades apart, the three surviving women meet up at an exhibition of their late friend's photography and are flooded by memories as they examine her familiar images. Here, the narrative returns to their early days in Tbilisi. Haratischwili dramatically explores several tumultuous decades of Georgian history through the lives of the four women and a vast and sprawling cast of secondary characters, touching on themes like gender, sexuality, family, misogyny, and class. VERDICT The visceral story of a quartet of women facing down the violence of history, this lengthy read rewards patience. Recommended for audiences interested in post-Soviet history as well as those who enjoy complex novels about interwoven characters shaken by circumstance. A good pick for fans of Elena Ferrante.--Melanie Kindrachuk

A brilliant epic follows four Georgian friends through the tragedies of their country and the challenges of their lives. Haratischwili's masterful novel unfolds over two alternating timelines--one, a single night at a photography retrospective in Brussels in 2019, brings three long-separated friends together; the other ranges through the decades that define their friendship, beginning in the late 1980s in a shared apartment courtyard in Tbilisi, Georgia, a few years before the fall of the Soviet Union, continuing as the former Soviet Republic tumbles into criminality, mob rule, and the threat of civil war. The exhibition celebrates the work of their fourth friend, Dina, who died by suicide 20 years earlier--a fact we learn in the first chapter but come to fully understand only 700 eagerly turned pages later. The narrator is Keto, who grows up in a delightfully quirky household with two battling grandmothers, a widowed physicist father, and a beloved older brother; the story follows her friendships with brilliant Ira, daring Dina, and beautiful Nene, the darling daughter of a mobster family, from their schoolyard beginnings, through young loves, emerging talents, and life-changing decisions, everything thrown into high relief by the unfolding disaster around them. Ferrante lovers will find many echoes of the Neapolitan novels here, the plot similarly featuring almost mythic levels of intensity in love and grief, centering the importance of women's friendship. An unexpectedly moving translators' note says that the novel, while not autobiographical, is probably Haratischwili's "most personal work to date," a history strongly felt in myriad gorgeously written summary passages like this one: "We, the children of the nineties, who swapped our childhood and youth for Kalashnikovs and heroin--we, of all people, listened to Barry White and longed for nothing more than eternal love and the ecstatic fruits of that love, for fun and excitement. We, of all people,let the music play. And how! We played it right to the bitter end." A thrilling, heartbreaking, unforgettable story. Not a page too long. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.