Content area
Full Text
Anthony Marra. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. New York. Hogarth. 2013. isbn 978- 0770436407
After reading A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, I can only echo the amaze- ment of other reviewers: that such an accomplished novel is Anthony Marras first and that he visited Chechnya, the setting, only after he had all but com- pleted it. The places, the topography, the course of the wars-the remem- bered first occupation and the second occupation by the Russians within the ten-year span of the novel, 1994 to 2004-all this context was largely cre- ated from determined research.
The novel begins and ends in the middle. During Chechnya's rebellion against Russian occupation, a girl's father is whisked away by soldiers, presumably to be shot, and the eight- year-old is taken by a neighbor to a hospital,...