A Hamlet Called America

 

The Hamlet Called America / Khrystia Vengryniuk
trans. from the Ukrainian by Kate Tsurkan & Dmytro Kyyan
South Portland, ME: Sandorf Passage, c2026
224 p.

I was sent an advanced reading copy of this book by the publisher; it will be released mid-October of this year. I'm obviously quite interested in this thanks to it being a Ukrainian novel, newly translated. 

It's an intriguing read, something quite different from my recent reading. It's set in the near past, no mention of the war here, but focuses on the lives of a small group of eccentric villagers. 

I saw someone describe it as a Ukrainian version of the village of Macondo from 100 Years of Solitude, and I guess I could see that connection - it does have an element of magical realism, with a few inexplicable things going on that people seem to just accept. And there is a long history to the hamlet, where time seems a little unreliable.

The hamlet is isolated and sticks to itself; the exception is the priest up the hill, a healer who draws people to area. One of our villagers ends up there herself near the end, with an unusual health status to be managed. 

There are characters who come and go, as well, mainly the younger family members of the residents. A grandson or granddaughter here, a bevy of daughters there, coming for visits from the city. There is even a beautiful stranger dumped on the road at night and taken in by one of them. Lots of intrigue to follow. 

It reads like a heightened folktale, with stock characters who are somehow made into complex people in their own right. There are bits of superstition, folklore, unexplained moments, and a bit too much familial togetherness. In some ways I found it reminiscent of Tanja Maljartschuk's Biography of a Chance Miracle -- that novel also plays with expectations of reality, and it is set in a Ukrainian town named San Francisco. But while that novel has a main character, this one really has a cast of characters all as important as the next. Their stories intertwine and depend on one another's stories to exist. 

It's an unusual, earthy read, with a lot of the story so dependent on the setting and the characters' life stories. I am sure I missed some of the nuance because I'm not as familiar with the context. But it was a compelling read that I had to finish. Look for it in October!