sawyl | The Secret History of Moscow

Ekaterina Sedia's novel The Secret History of Moscow has a lot to like. Set in post-communist Russia — from clues in the text, I guess it's actually more like the mid-1990s — it follows a schizophrenic woman, a lazy policeman and an alcoholic painter as the try to work out why people seem to be turning into birds.

The problems start when Galina's younger sister vanishes from the bathroom of their 8th floor apartment, leaving behind her newborn baby behind, and when Yakov Richards sees a man out walking his dog transformed into a crow. Galina and Yakov's paths cross when Yakov is asked to investigate the recent surge in missing persons, and the pair team up with the painter Fyodor who takes them through a reflection in train window in Arbatskaya station into a grey, hidden world underneath Moscow.

As the trio quest through the underworld in search of Galina's sister, they meet a series of different people — some real, some architypes, some literary characters, some folkloric — and with every encounter, the quest pauses to allow the new character's story to be told. Although the rescue narrative does eventually resolve, it doesn't do so in a straightforward way but, in true Russian fashion, ends on a note of rather touching melancholy.

Recommended.