A trucker father is taking his daughter to enroll in Moscow. There is an endless steppe outside the window, and the characters gradually get to know each other. More precisely, only the narrator is trying to get closer to her father. He, a former member of a criminal gang, suffering from addictions, a shell, and not a person, can only endlessly talk about the past.
The suffocating atmosphere of the 90s and early noughties, poverty, instability — Vasyakina writes out what many would prefer not to stir up, opens, as if with a knife, childhood memories of parents. The environment becomes the same full participant in what is happening: the smell of fuel oil in the cabin and rotten apples in the market, the heat of the steppe are reproduced frighteningly reliably.
Those faced with perinatal loss feel, in addition to mental pain, also acute incongruity in the realm of rosy-cheeked babies and round bellies. A child who has been diagnosed with developmental defects incompatible with life becomes a "fetus" in the eyes of doctors — something that needs to be got rid of as soon as possible. In such a situation, the mother's feelings recede not to the second, but to the last plan.
Anna Starobinets strives to live in this documentary the pain of loss, the horror of "punitive gynecology" and the rejection of doctors completely devoid of empathy. She also gives space to the many voices of women who have faced similar situations.
Those who are looking for a close acquaintance with the popular actor Jim Carrey in this book will be disappointed. There is no clear narrative, no story of overcoming that would lead to imminent success. The actor and his co-author, journalist Dana Vachon, confuse the reader from the first page, lead him into a maze consisting of biographical data and complete absurdity.
Quite authentic-sounding discussions of filming, roles and fees are interspersed with completely insane episodes like the one where Kim Kardashian makes a bomb. It seems as if director Michel Gondry had a hand in the book. The only true thing is the acute feeling of isolation and abandonment that accompanies the actor all his life.
Following her love, the writer Olivia Lang moves to New York. But the relationship ends, and she is left alone in an unfamiliar place. The essayist becomes a flanker roaming the neon body of the city.
In an attempt to cope with her emotions, she explores the creativity of those who have experienced something similar. Starting with Edward Hopper and his works, almost every one of which is dedicated to a sense of alienation, and ending with Andy Warhol, who, although he created a "factory" of endless parties around himself, knew firsthand how to be a loner in a crowd.
Pop singer with an operatic voice Klaus Nomi, renowned director Alfred Hitchcock, photographer David Wojnarowicz helped Lang validate and live through her experiences, accept the alienation of everyone, condemned by a productivity‑obsessed society.
In the United States, victims who cannot be identified are often called John Doe. Under the name Emily Doe, the world learned about Chanel Miller. She was raped by Brock Turner at a university party. The girl reported to the police, the criminal escaped, but was caught. A painful trial and trial followed: even with obvious evidence of guilt, sentencing was delayed as much as possible.
In the yard of France in the 1960s, student riots and liberal changes are still far away. 23‑year-old student Annie finds out that she is pregnant. Abortions are prohibited, and the heroine has to find a way out, hide her stomach and eventually terminate her pregnancy in a terrible way.
The book was written 40 years later, and in it the writer restores the events in her memory, more precisely, the "event" — the words "pregnancy" and "child" that young Annie avoids, calling it "reality". The author does not smooth out the facts, but ruthlessly describes the condemnation of society, the rudeness of doctors, and vulnerability to clandestine midwives and harassment of the one to whom she turned for help.
In 2022, Annie Erno received the Nobel Prize in Literature with a commentary "for the fearlessness and dispassionate poignancy with which she reveals the roots, alienation and collective limitations of personal memory."
Rachel Kask's novel is unique in that it does not have a main character as such. At the beginning of the book, we meet a writer who is flying to Athens to teach creative writing courses. It is noteworthy that the reader learns her name and biographical details (mother of two, divorced) towards the end of the novel.
A woman captures the stories of others: a neighbor on a plane, a fellow teacher, her students, a failed publisher and a fashionable writer. Their stories merge into a cacophony of events, intertwining with each other and breaking up into separate fragments. The narrator herself is not in these stories, she is an impartial shorthand writer who allows you to immerse yourself in a hodgepodge of feelings and dramas."Contour" is the first novel of the trilogy. Two other works were also published in Russian: "Transit" and "Kudos".
