The classic hero's quest takes traumatic and dark twists and turns in Leo Vardiashvili's lushly haunted debut novel set in post-Soviet Georgia. The hero of Hard by a Great Forest is Saba, a Georgian refugee who, as a child, flees the civil war with his father, Irakli, and his brother, Sandro. Scraping by in England, they're unable to send for their mother, Eka. She dies without seeing them again, as does most of the left-behind family.
Now, years later, after many false starts, Irakli sets off for Georgia--and then disappears. Sandro soon disappears, too, leaving cryptic notes for Saba, now a drifting 20-something, to follow. He travels to Georgia and immediately meets Nodar, a refugee from war-torn Ossetia, who becomes Saba's driver, landlord, and quasi-fixer. The two roam across vibrant, surreal Tbilisi following Sandro's breadcrumb trail of clues. The search--never leisurely--soon turns into a chase that leaves the boundaries of the capital city, amping up the already taut atmosphere. Along the way, Saba's visited by the voices and memories of those he lost, including a beloved neighbor, a grandmother, an uncle, and, most achingly, his mother. For years he's "avoided direct thoughts of Eka, the way your eyes might swerve the sharp light of the low winter sun." But now, faced with what he's left behind, Saba is forced to reckon with long-silenced emotions and yearnings.
Fans of Téa Obreht's The Tiger's Wife will feel right at home reading Vardiashvili's novel. Beyond their ravaged settings and many characters, they both feature escaped zoo animals wandering city streets, a penchant for twining folklore with storylines, and impressively evocative atmospheres. --Nina Semczuk, writer, editor, and illustrator