LITERAL REMAINS

A child, Arkady, is found dead by the railroad tracks.  It is officially found to be an accident.  From the details of the body, the incident is being called a murder by the family.  The father’s supervisor from work visits the home.  The supervisor informs Fyodor, Arkady’s dad, for his own safety, for his remaining family’s safety, stop the talk of murder and accept it was an accident.

The supervisor is Leo Demidov, a member of the MGB, the State Security force, in 1953 Stalinist Soviet Union.  Murder did not happen in the USSR.  Talk of it was anti-Stalin, anti-State, anti-Party, especially since since the child’s death had already been officially found to be an accident.

Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44 paints, in vivid, masterful, strokes, life under government rule that is full of uncertainty, a life in which people are imprisoned for any little thing the State deems a threat.  The people are not surprised to have neighbors disappear in the night, or to be taken in for questioning and never be seen again.  This is a life under threat; people are guilty until proven guilty- evidence is a trivial matter.

Inspired by actual events (the Andrei Chikatilo case), the murders in Child 44would go unsolved if not for Leo seeing the light and turning from his blind obediance to State.  In Stalin’s Soviet Union, everyone is watched and checked, and practically no one can be trusted, and even the mightiest can fall without a moment’s notice.  Leo’s story is a harrowing one; his visit to the grieving Fyodor sets into motion a string of events (including forced exile) that ultimately force him to defy his beloved State and try to stop the murder of its children.

There are some brutal scenes, shocking scenes, in Smith’s novel, some are just glimpses of daily Soviet life at the time.  But amid all the turmoil and constant dread, Smith offers glimpses of real beauty that shine through the despair.  There is basic goodness and hope at the heart of it all.

Highly recommended.

5 out of 5
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