Hunger - Softcover

Blackwell, Elise

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099564424 ISBN 13: 9780099564423

Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd, 2011

Synopsis

When German troops surround Leningrad and cut off food supplies in the autumn of 1941, no one imagines that the siege will last almost three years and take hundreds of thousands of lives. As the first 'hungry winter' sets in, the city's residents strip the bark off trees, boil and eat moss-covered stones, and trade priceless antiques for half a loaf of bread - and sex for a chunk of sugar. But the scientists at the Institute of Plant Industry pledge to protect their collection of rare seeds, painstakingly gathered from all over the world, no matter what the human cost. But as the siege continues, the group divides into those who would preserve their principles at the price of starvation, and others who turn to deception - and more sinister measures - to survive. A powerful, stunningly precise and beautifully written novel about human nature under life's harshest pressures. Reminiscent of Rachel Seiffert's The Dark Room and Bernhard Schlink's The Reader in its brevity, spareness and power, it is a quite remarkable debut.

About this title

About the Author

Elise Blackwell holds an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, and has worked as a journalist, writer and translator. Originally from southern Louisiana, she teaches fiction writing at Boise State University.

From Publishers Weekly

An elderly Russian emigrr reminisces about love in the shadow of war in this quietly effective, poignant debut. The opening chapters find the anonymous narrator ensconced in his New York apartment, waxing poetic about his life as a botanist during the siege of Leningrad, as he and his colleagues struggle to save the city's rare collection of plants in the botanical gardens. Deeply in love with his wife, Alena, another botanist, the narrator nonetheless embarks on a series of affairs, with a fellow worker named Lidia and with sexy, exotic Iskra. Both affairs become more difficult and tortured as the siege progresses and the city's population begins to starve. Blackwell wisely steers clear of the horrors that have been chronicled in many previous historical novels. Instead, she offers gemlike observations ("With Alena, who needed neither to find nor to lose herself, sex was only sex") and sensory detail ("one fat, perfect potato in salted water"). The juxtaposition of the gnawing torment of starvation with the narrator's memory of the exotic foods he collected and ate on his travels around the world before the war furnish the novel with many of its tensions and delights. Plotwise, there are some intriguing twists and turns as the war progresses, but the climax is rather tepid, with Blackwell underplaying her narrator's unusual and immoral survival tactics as food becomes increasingly scarce. Still, this is a well-crafted novel that works largely because of its small, evocative moments.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0099564424
• ISBN 13: 9780099564423
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144