Disappearing Earth

Not a conventional mystery novel – while the first chapter describes two young girls going missing, every chapter thereafter is from the perspective of a different person on the remote Kamchatka Peninsula. Most of them don't know the girls at all, and as such the news of their abduction becomes just part of the background noise to these many different characters' lives (until the last chapter, from the perspective of the girls' mother).

There is in fact a resolution to the mystery, but that's not the main reason to read this novel. Its real strong point is its elaborate depiction of this remote and troubled part of the world. Through its wide range of perspectives, a number of different issues are touched upon: misogyny, racism, the show more legacy of the Soviet period and the post-Soviet economic crisis, homophobia, elitism, the difficulties of being young in a remote area (the lack of job opportunities, or a large enough pool of people to date that you don't “have” to settle for a less-than-ideal option…). It's very interesting and skilfully done. Don't go into this expecting a real mystery novel, but if you like literary fiction exploring social issues in different parts of the world, this will make a great read. show less

Setting the scene with a kidnapping of two young girls, this book has an ominous beginning and the suspense of the story grows as months pass and the story jumps to the perspective of many girls and women's stories across the Kamchatka peninsula.
This story sucks you in from the start and then kind of leaves you questioning as it cycles through a variety of perspectives and stories that can on surface seem almost unrelated. When the kidnapper appears in the book it's obvious, even though it's not directly acknowledged, but it doesn't take away from the suspense of the story as that is driven through trying to connect how all these women's stories are interwoven and connected to this crime.
This book accomplishes something rarely seen in show more crime dramas in taking the focus away from the perpetrator to the point of irrelevance and instead focusing on how it effects those left behind and the community. It also does an excellent job of portraying this heartbreaking story without ever being dark or descriptively traumatic, allowing the reader to fill it in for themselves or avoid it if that's too much for them.
Really interesting tactic of writing for this type of story and I quite enjoyed it, easily recommended. show less

Kamtschatka ist als weitgehend unberührtes Naturparadies bekannt, in dem Besuchende Vulkane, Geysire, Braunbären und mehr entdecken können. Doch wie die Menschen in diesem dünn besiedelten Teil Russlands (die Halbinsel ist etwas größer als Deutschland mit ca. 310.000 dort Lebenden verschiedener Ethnien) leben, dürfte weitestgehend unbekannt sein.
Julia Phillips erzählt in monatlichen Abständen in 13 Geschichten von Frauen und Mädchen, die in irgendeiner Form mit dem Verschwinden zweier kleiner Mädchen in Berührung gekommen sind; sei es durch Pressemitteilungen, Verwandtenberichte oder ähnlichem. Auch wenn der Vermisstenfall scheinbar im Vordergrund steht (das erste Kapitel handelt davon), ist er letztlich ’nur‘ die show more Verbindung zwischen den Frauen über die hier berichtet wird, die aus den verschiedensten Gegenden der Halbinsel kommen und so unterschiedlich sind wie ihre Herkunft. Männer, zumindest wenn sie leben, tauchen in diesen Geschichten fast nur als unangenehme Zeitgenossen auf: Schwätzer, unzuverlässig, autoritär, sexistisch – nur die Toten scheinen die wirklich Guten zu sein.
Durch die Porträts dieser Frauen, die meiner Meinung nach nicht alle gelungen sind, entsteht ein Panorama der Gesellschaft Kamtschatkas, die sich aufgrund diverser Missstände wie fehlender Infrastruktur, Korruption und Rassismus gegenüber Indigenen und Gastarbeitern mühsam durchs Leben kämpft. Doch nicht nur das Zusammenleben der verschiedenen Volksgruppen ist schwierig, auch die Indigenen selbst haben Probleme innerhalb ihrer eigenen Gemeinschaft: Generationenkonflikte, das Festhalten an Traditionen gegen die Wünsche der Jüngeren, Engstirnigkeit und ebenso hier Rassismus.
Auch wenn es sich praktisch um einzelne Geschichten handelt: Durch das geschickte Einflechten von kurzen Sätzen, meist ganz beiläufig, erfährt man immer wieder etwas über das Schicksal der Frauen, die schon erwähnt wurden. Manchmal ist auch etwas detektivischer Scharfsinn gefragt um sich Zusammenhänge aus vorhergehenden Kapiteln zu erschließen, was das Lesevergnügen aber nicht mindert, ganz im Gegenteil. Schlussendlich versöhnt das Ende mit all den offenen Fragen, die eventuell noch geblieben sind, sodass ich das Buch mit einem zufriedenen Seufzer zur Seite legte.
Vor dem Hintergrund der grandiosen Landschaft Kamtschatkas zeigt die Autorin das Leben von Frauen, die wenig bis nichts verbindet, aber eines gemeinsam haben: Wünsche und Sehnsüchte, die wohl nie in Erfüllung gehen werden. show less

It is hard to believe that this is a first novel for Ms. Phillipps. It is extremely well-written, and she takes using differing points of view to tell a story to a new level. At first I found the differing points of view confusing, and hard to follow, but thank goodness she has a list of character families at the beginning of the book, so I referred back to that when I needed to. Partway through it became much easier to keep them straight. The setting is a remote peninsula in far eastern Russia called Kamchatka. This peninsula is located in the Pacific Ocean and is close to Alaska. The peninsula is the home to about 300,000 people which includes ethnic Russians as well as Koryaks, who are an indigenous group of people. The time is show more present-day and a horrific event occurs in August. Two young girls have disappeared from a busy street in the city of Petropavlstok. These little girls are Koryak girls. The story progresses through all the months of the year following this event, and each month presents a different point of view from people that are linked in some way to this event. Bits of the story behind the kidnapping come out as the book progresses, but all is not made clear until July of the following year. These women and families presented are strong women who have each made it through traumatic events and trials of their own. This is a mystery that binds them all together in some way. It's also a mystery where we see racial disconnects throughout. How hard are the police looking for these two little indigenous girls? Do they even think that they were taken, even after an eye-witness report gives a description of a man in a big, dark vehicle with two little girls inside? Do they blame the mother for lack of supervision of her two daughters? Racism is portrayed in such a subtle way that it's almost like an afterthought, but is glaring all the same. This is a very carefully crafted book and there are no superfluous words used throughout the entire book. A very powerful story about a little-known area with a very well-known world problem. Highly recommend. show less

On the isolated Russian Kamchatka Peninsula, two young girls are kidnapped in broad daylight in their village. The case sets the local community on edge, as the only way in or out of the region is by ship or plane, so how could they have just disappeared?

There is a lot going on here! With each chapter we are introduced to new, intriguing subset of characters, allowing the reader glimpses into many aspects of life in the Russian Far East. Just as keeping track of the sheer number of seemingly unrelated characters and their back stories begins to feel overwhelming, everything starts to (thankfully) cohere. Plot aside, one thing I enjoyed most about this book was opening my eyes to a region and a culture I've never even considered show more previously, much less read about. I found myself referring to a map more than once to orient myself and get a sense of the geography. While the story isn't riveting in the way of a real page-turner, and the ending seemed to me slightly pat, I enjoyed the story for other reasons above and recommend it. show less

The novel begins with the abduction of two sisters, eleven and five, from a beach in the city of Petropavlovsk, the administrative centre of Kamchatka peninsula. The chapter is told from the point of view of the big sister, bored with summer and having to watch her little sister. Each subsequent chapter follows a character, often connected to the investigation, or interested in the search for the children, but the focus is on what is important in their lives. An indigenous woman from the isolated town of Esso struggles to find her footing at university in the big city, torn between her enjoyment in joining a dance troupe and loyalty to her boyfriend back home. A woman who has learned to trust no one loses her dog. A teenage girl is show more faced with being ostracized from her group of friends. A woman struggling with being stuck home caring for an infant develops fantasies about the crew of foreign workers working on the building site across the road.

I began the book thinking that it would be the story of how two plucky children survived the wilderness, or escaped something bad, an assumption aided by the book's cover. Then it appeared to be a collection of linked stories about life in Kamchatka and while interesting, didn't seem to fully justify the hype surrounding this book. But the penultimate chapter was just perfectly written, calling back to an earlier chapter, but telling its own story, that I suddenly saw the larger picture Phillips is creating here, and the final chapter pulling everything together into a unified whole. This is a very promising debut and I'm absolutely going to be reading what ever Julia Phillips writes next. show less

Authors should not put character lists at the beginning of books--it makes readers nervous. So many characters I need a map to keep track of them? Yes, in the case of Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips, but the effort is well worth it. Two young sisters vanish from the town center on a beautiful summer day in a small city on the Kamchatka peninsula. Phillips then follows the next 12 months, each with a different character loosely connected to the two girls until she circles back a year later. Beautifully written with deceptively simple sentences and sharp descriptions of the harsh landscape, Kamchatka itself becomes a main piece of the story. Phillips has written an extraordinary novel about loneliness, race, women and so much show more more--highly recommended. show less