What should I bake for a Christmas cookie exchange?

A constellation of vital phenomena : a novel

by Anthony Marra

FICTION Marra Anthony
Fiction

Stegner Fellow, Iowa MFA, and winner of The Atlantic's Student Writing Contest, Anthony Marra has written a brilliant debut novel that brings to life an abandoned hospital where a tough-minded doctor decides to harbor a hunted young girl, with powerful consequences. In the final days of December 2004, in a small rural village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa hides in the woods when her father is abducted by Russian forces. Fearing for her life, she flees with their neighbor Akhmed - a failed physician - to the bombed-out hospital, where Sonja, the one remaining doctor, treats a steady stream of wounded rebels and refugees and mourns her missing sister. Over the course of five dramatic days, Akhmed and Sonja reach back into their pasts to unravel the intricate mystery of coincidence, betrayal, and forgiveness that unexpectedly binds them and decides their fate. With The English Patient's dramatic sweep and The Tiger's Wife's expert sense of place, Marra gives us a searing debut about the transcendent power of love in wartime, and how it can cause us to become greater than we ever thought possible.

Such an affecting story set in a war zone. Marra writes in the author’s note, “The axis on which this novel rests is formed from two narratives shared by Islamic and Christian traditions—that of a parent asked to sacrifice a child and that of an orphan delivered into the family responsible for her orphanhood…” This theme drives the book so smoothly you’d think the book was on autopilot. Marra beautifully weaves the stories of his three primary characters, and it works. There’s very little that’s superfluous in this book. Marra’s commitment to this theme delivers these relationships and storylines from being otherwise contrived. -Melody