Winterkill

 

Winterkill / Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
NY: Scholastic, c2022.
266 p.

The last book I've read this week focusing on Ukraine and the Holodomor is Winterkill by Marsha Skrypuch. She is a well known author of middle grade fiction, who has written on many Ukrainian topics, as well as on some other historical tragedies such as the Armenian genocide. She balances hard stories with a writing style that is aimed at the younger reader, sharing difficult facts in an accessible way. 

This book focuses on the Chorny family, living in Ukraine in early 1930. There are collectivization efforts going on all around them, aiming at having all successful farmers give their land to the state and work the fields for the state (and as it turns out, not being paid or fed for the pleasure). We meet Nyl, a 12 yr old boy with two younger siblings, Slavko and Yulia. As the story opens, he finds two Canadians in his mother's kitchen, inventorying the farm's possessions for the Party. These are people of Ukrainian descent from Canada who decided that the Soviet plan was utopia so left Canada to return to Ukraine and work for Stalin's regime. One of them is Comrade Alice, a girl of Nyl's age, whom he tries to talk to normally. This encounter has long term repercussions for Nyl. 

There are many harsh moments in this story; violence, murder, starvation, death, cruelty. And they are told clearly, but without gratuitous detail. Skrypuch is able to express historical fact with compelling storytelling, at the right level for this audience. Nyl's family breaks down throughout the book, starting with his uncle who is murdered by a Party official. His sister betrays the family, his parents both slowly perish, and he takes his younger brother with him when he escapes his village of Felivka, heading for the larger town of Kharkiv and the possibility of some work (and food) at the tractor factory being built there. 

In Kharkiv, they meet up with Comrade Alice again, by this time quite disillusioned and trying to find a way to get home to Canada, taking photographic evidence of the terror-famine with her. She and Nyl pair up to try to walk out of the famine region of Ukraine to Moscow where she could flee - Nyl just wanting to go far enough to outwalk the famine, which somehow magically limited itself to the areas where Ukrainian peasants lived. (spoiler: it was Stalin's plan to destroy Ukrainian lives and culture). 

This is a book that just has one awful thing happening after another, but it doesn't feel hopeless. There is hope and grit in both Nyl and Alice, and they make it out. But it's not a sugary ending. There are loose ends, no satisfying justice, just survival. Still, there is a sense that there is a future for Nyl. I found this book fascinating, an absorbing read that I couldn't put down. The element of finding Canadians in it was a shock to me - I hadn't known that Canadian citizens had left Canada during the hard years of the Depression, thinking that the idealized Soviet Union would be a better bet. Bad gamble there. Definitely an informative read, which I also found full of daily detail that anchored the story in its time and setting. 

And one other note, about this cover -- I think it's brilliant, with the girl on the cover mirroring the commemorative statue outside the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide in Kyiv. 

To find out more about this book, you can watch Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch's interview with HREC.

The Photograph

The Photograph / Kat Karpenko
Pennsauken Township, NJ: BookBaby, c2020.
226 p.

I discovered this one online via my library; it's a story that was spurred by a family photo belonging to the author. It was a photo of her grandparents' full family, just before they left Ukraine for Canada in in 1928.

Karpenko has taken that photo, and some family stories, and created a novel that is deeply affecting. It's 1928, and the Karpenko family of Ukraine is feeling the looming pressure of the Stalinist government and its agricultural policies. Collectivization is going on, and any successful farmer is being branded an enemy of the state - their land and equipment should belong to the collective. Nicholai Karpenko sees no future except for more repression and state theft; he decides that his family should escape the Soviet Union and go to Canada. This is harder than it first seems, requiring some tricky planning for an escape. 

Not only that, but he can't convince any of his brothers or sisters to join them. In the end, it's only Nicholai, his wife Juliana and their three children who make their way to Canada, with a stop in Budapest to find the connections they need to leave Europe. The book is loosely arranged in three sections, starting with this emigration storyline. 

It then follows the rest of the family who stayed in Ukraine, over the years of 1929-1931, and then we experience the Holodomor, the terror-famine orchestrated by Stalin, over the years 1932-1933. These sections are historically accurate, and so quite horrific. The famine was severe, with millions of Ukrainians dying of starvation, a situation created by Stalin's policies - excessive grain quotas, restriction of movement of Ukrainian farmers, and genocidal intent. The book doesn't hide the truth, and we have characters suffering and dying. However, the book is written for school age readers, so the narrative style doesn't go into graphic descriptions. But it is clear what is happening. 

The terrible events are counterpointed by the love that this family has for one another, and the ways they try to help each other. Their survival is not assured but they keep on. And the connection with Canada in the end gives a longer view. 

This is hard-hitting but also a family story. It's well done, with a lack of overdone sentimentality, just a dose of reality. But the characters and their relationships make this a compelling read, one that brings forgotten history to life.  

To find out more about this book, you can watch Kat Karpenko's interview with HREC (Holodomor Research and Education Consortium). 

Philipovna, Daughter of Sorrow

 

Philipovna, Daughter of Sorrow / Valentina Gal
Gananoque, ON: MiroLand, c2019.
285 p.

Yesterday was Holodomor Memorial Day, as I shared in my last post. This was a manufactured famine, created by Stalin with genocidal intent. But it's still not widely known, and often denied. So I thought I would share a few novels which I've read, dealing with this event. 

I'm starting with this fictionalized memoir which was based on the author's mother's stories. And it is very powerful. It's told from the viewpoint of Vera Philipovna, a young orphan who is sent to live with her Aunt Xena's family in another small village in Ukraine. But this is the early 30s, and Stalin's famine-genocide is about to begin. 

The story covers three years of Philipovna's life, and they are hard and tragic. Most of her family dies of starvation; she is sent away to an orphanage in a town in hopes that she will survive there - in the end she is one of the few members of her family to live past the famine. But life in the orphanage is no treat. There is horrific abuse and mistreatment of both children and the women caring for them.  

This book is both hard and easy to read. Hard because of the content: there is such clear description of violence and cruelty of all kinds, all based in experiences of Ukrainians like the author's mother. Easy because the writing is fluid and clear, and in its simplicity it holds so much power.

But the book also shares details of Ukrainian culture and daily life at the time, and this is also so valuable. We see the family structures and the habits, routines, rituals, customs and traditions which Ukrainians are trying to hold on to and hide from the abusive state and its figureheads. The evocation of life before this tragedy is strong and memorable. Philipovna is lucky enough to be taken in by a loving Aunt & Uncle, and cousins too. Their life together was warm and connected, if not for the political events coming to disrupt everything about life and community. 

There is so much loss and grief here, however. It's a memorial to all those who weren't as lucky as Gal's mother and who didn't make it out of Ukraine. Gal is a Canadian writer who was encouraged to write this after taking a creative writing class, and I'm grateful that she did. It's moving, unforgettable, and rings with truth. 

Holodomor Memorial Day

 

Every year on the fourth Saturday in November, Ukraine, Canada and the world commemorate Holodomor Memorial Day. We gather in our communities to remember and honour the millions of victims of the Holodomor. Holodomor stands for forced hunger, and this day commemorates the genocidal famine created by Stalin. At 7:32 pm, we light a candle and hold a minute of silence to remember the victims of the Holodomor.

To find out more, please read the statement by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress or read some of the documentation collected by the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium, a project of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.

Statue from National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide, Kyiv

The Fiend

 

The Fiend / Margaret Millar 
NY: Soho Syndicate, 2016, c1964.
245 p.

Another creepy tale of psychology and suspense from Millar. This is a very 60s book, it exudes its time period without even trying. Set in a small California town, it looks at two families who are irrevocably connected, and the convicted pedophile who lives in their community. But you will have your expectations upended here, as usual with Millar's writing - nothing is ever quite what it seems. 

Charlie Gowen is a disturbed individual, one who has done his time for crimes involving children, and is now living with his older brother Ben. Ben tries to keep Charlie going as a functioning member of society, but it's wearing on him. Doing research at the library one day, Charlie meets a young librarian who inexplicably falls for him. Ben is more than willing to hand over the care of Charlie so encourages this relationship. 

But at the same time, Charlie has been hanging around a schoolyard, watching with concern as young Jessie Brant, a real tomboy, plays on the equipment. She might hurt herself! He sends an anonymous note to her parents warning them to look after her better. 

But her parents have their own concerns. Her mother wants to move back to the city, her father is occupied with many things, and their dysfunctional neighbour is becoming obsessed with Jessie since she doesn't have her own children to worry about. 

Jessie best friend has a single mother who is also obsessed; she is fearful of what her ex-husband will do, trying to take her daughter away. And one night, Jessie does indeed disappear. 

There is such an ominous overtone to all the varied elements of this novel. Each of the characters feels unstable in some way, and there is so much looming violence. The threat of violence to women and children permeates this book, even if nothing is made explicit. Millar is so good at developing character and examining the hidden psychological elements of a character's actions. Nobody is ever what you expect, and the action goes in ways that I had not foreseen, not until the very end. 

This is a fascinating study of a small circle of people who are connected without really knowing it, and of the social views of mental illnesses, phobias and more, in this era. Quite a read, a bit disturbing, and unpredictable. I found it dramatic and convincing; I admire Millar's skill at creating people who are troubled and unlikeable but somehow you can't stop reading about them. 

Do Evil in Return

Do Evil in Return / Margaret Millar
NY: Soho Syndicate, 2017, c1950.
192 p.

I've also been reading some crime fiction that is not light and frothy, like the first two I shared this week. I returned to Margaret Millar's books, which I space out so I don't run out too quickly. She writes psychological mysteries usually set around mid-century or a bit later, and they are equally suspense and social commentary. 

In this one, published in 1950, the subject matter is eerily relevant. Charlotte is a doctor, and one day a young woman appears in her office. Violet is pregnant from a one night stand with a salesman; her husband is angry and Violet is desperate to get rid of it. Charlotte can't do it, although it nags at her for the rest of the day and into her evening, when her married boyfriend comes over -- she mentions what's bothering her, the thought that this young woman is in dire straits, but ones that Charlotte herself could just as easily find herself in. Her boyfriend is impatient with this line of thought. 

But Charlotte's lack of assistance leads to bigger things; Violet is found drowned, while her uncle and husband try to extort money from Charlotte and others in her circle. Charlotte meets Detective Easter, the cop on the case, an unmarried man her own age who falls for her quickly and can't understand her relationship with an older married man. Meanwhile Charlotte is uneasily sure that this was murder and not suicide, and tries to investigate on her own, and it gets her into some deep water as well. 

I thought this was a masterful story of motives, character, desperation and the need for connection is a noirish, bleak setting. The characters are all drawn so sharply, their interior lives and flaws exposed to the reader. Even small bit characters get their moment, from a waitress to the murdered girl's sister's friend -- they are all fully present. Millar has a knack for this, and for a twisty plot. This one shocked me, and the theme and atmosphere of this book felt too contemporary in many ways. There were small flaws for me; Detective Easter feels a bit like a stereotype and never really came to life, and the biting commentary on Charlotte's spinster receptionist was a bit too sharp for me in moments. Otherwise, this was one of those books that you start and then don't put down again until you're finished, no matter what time it is. An excellent read. 
 

Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret

Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret / Benjamin Stevenson
NY: Mariner Books, c2024.
174 p.

Another funny murder mystery, and this time seasonal too! This was a great way to kick off the holiday season for me, as it is set up like an advent calendar - if you start reading one chapter a day on Dec 1 you'll end up on Dec 24. Just like Stevenson's other books in this series, this one is really self-referential and meta. So entertaining, in all three takes so far!

When I got this, I thought, oh my this is quite short. Stevenson addresses that early in the book by announcing that this is the Christmas special, traditionally a shorter book with some of the characters off stage, so to speak. And he continues with his description of mystery fiction tropes as he tells his own mystery tale. Somehow, as with his other books, this still works. The humour is there, the suspense is there, and the Australian setting is definitely still part of the plot. 

In this one, Ern is heading to the Blue Mountains to look into the arrest of his ex-wife. Her rich new boyfriend has been murdered, and she knows that only Ern can save her now. But Ern's lack of judgement when it comes to his relationships arises again; he tells his new fiancee that he is going there to check out a stage magician who his uncle wants to book for their wedding entertainment. Yes, this is bonkers. 

What with stage magic, disgruntled theatre workers, a murder to kick things off and suspicious cops, and of course Ern's investigation, heads will roll. In this case quite literally. 

If you're a fan of this series, this is an entertaining addition to it. I found the Christmassy elements just right, not overdone, and an essential part of the story. The mystery makes sense, Ern is as talkative and expository as usual, and it's just good fun. With this series, it's probably best to start at the beginning and get to know these characters, although this can stand alone. It's more fun if you know Ern already though. Really enjoyed it.