THE GIRL IN THE WATER

Howse’s literary novel follows a Russian woman in the waning days of the Soviet Union.

Nadezhda “Nadia” Mikhailovna is the daughter of a shipping clerk and a factory worker. At a young age, she moves with her family from Estonia to Odessa. At 16, she’s sent back to Estonia to live with her grandmother, a spirited woman who weathered World War II, in the city of Tallinn. While in Estonia, Nadia learns of an “occurrence” at the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant that forces the evacuation of a place called Chernobyl. After visiting with Grandma, Nadia is off to see her sister, Nastya, in Kiev. She also interacts frequently with her childhood friend Ida Ivanova, an ethnic German who had “gone to a boarding school for orphans.” Ida undergoes shock therapy before she eventually gets to live in an apartment with a computer scientist. As the pensive Nadia goes from place to place and interacts with many people, readers learn her thoughts and impressions. She considers history to be “a melancholy treasure-house” and often reflects on her own and others’ memories. For example, Nadia embarks on a playful mission to find the grave of a cat that died in 1940 simply because the act helps an old man remember his family. Throughout the novel, the author provides a rich cross-section of the population: Nadia’s grandmother recollects how, during World War II, she “rode to Berlin on the gun mantlet of a T-34-85,” and her brother-in-law, a police officer, asks repetitive questions. Bland dialogue, however, sometimes drains momentum (“He asked about you and your friend. He said he saw you earlier” or “Your clothes are in the dryer”). As realistic as such exchanges may be, they can make scenes drag. But on the whole, Nadia’s journey is a memorable one. She comes of age in places as diverse as Estonia and Ukraine, which, while beset by Soviet malaise, abound with colorful characters.

An inviting, though dialogue-heavy, dive into the fragile world of a fading empire.