Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan, translated by Reilly Costigan-Humes & Isaac Wheeler (Deep Vellum, 400 pages, April 12)The bleak and desolate expanse of eastern Ukraine is the backdrop as well as a major character in Zhadan's novel, first published in 2010. Since that time, fighting among various factions has made the area deadly and life there uncertain. This makes reading Voroshilovgrad and following the news of the Ukrainian conflict oddly unsettling.
A strange mixture of magical realism, road novel, and spiritual journey, Voroshilovgrad follows the seemingly-random wanderings of Herman Korolyov, who is called away from his sketchy political job and friends to deal with the sudden disappearance of his brother. Herman journeys back to his childhood town and the gas station his brother had been running on the Kharkiv highway in order to figure out what to do with the business now that his brother has left (for Amsterdam? It's never clear).
