Disappearing Earth (Phillips)

Disappearing Earth 
Julia Phillips, 2019
Knopf Doubleday
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525520412 


Summary
Spellbinding, moving—evoking a fascinating region on the other side of the world—this suspenseful and haunting story announces the debut of a profoundly gifted writer.

One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two girls—sisters, eight and eleven—go missing.

In the ensuing weeks, then months, the police investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across a tightly woven community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women.

Taking us through a year in Kamchatka, Disappearing Earth enters with astonishing emotional acuity the worlds of a cast of richly drawn characters, all connected by the crime: a witness, a neighbor, a detective, a mother.

We are transported to vistas of rugged beauty—densely wooded forests, open expanses of tundra, soaring volcanoes, and the glassy seas that border Japan and Alaska—and into a region as complex as it is alluring, where social and ethnic tensions have long simmered, and where outsiders are often the first to be accused.

In a story as propulsive as it is emotionally engaging, and through a young writer's virtuosic feat of empathy and imagination, this powerful novel brings us to a new understanding of the intricate bonds of family and community, in a Russia unlike any we have seen before. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1989
• Where—Montclair, New Jersey, USA
• Education—Barnard College
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York


Julia Phillips is an American author, born in New Jersey. Her debut novel, Disappearing Earth, published in 2019, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction.

Phillips attended Montclair High School and earned her B.A. in English from Barnard College.  She spent a semester of college abroad in Moscow, volunteering at the Crime Victims Treatment Center.[

After graduating from college, Phillips earned a Fulbright Program grant, allowing her to return to Moscow, this time where she conducted research into the affect of  foreign investment and tourism on the Kamchatka Peninsula. She also wrote blog posts for The Moscow Times.

During her time in Kamchatka, she began exploring the everyday living experiences of women. This eventually led to the publication of her debut novel, Disappearing Earth, published in 2019, which was based on the fictional kidnapping of two girls in the Kamchatka Peninsula. In addition to being listed as a National Book Award finalist, The New York Times named the book one its "10 Best Books of 2019." (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 4-10-2020.)

Book Reviews
Superb…. Brilliant…. Phillips's deep examination of loss and longing… is a testament to the novel's power.
New York Times Book Review


Immensely moving.
Wall Street Journal


Absorbing and extraordinarily well crafted.… It is a many-stranded crime story. It is also a complex portrait of clashing cultures.
Boston Globe


Unshakeable…. Disappearing Earth has the makings of a lurid thriller, but first-time novelist Julia Phillips does something more sophisticated than that…. It’s so specific, and yet so universal. These are stories of women the world over.
USA Today
 

Riveting, deeply rewarding….  As each succeeding story of Disappearing Earth takes us another month away from hope that Sophia and Alyona will be found alive, it becomes apparent that the book is not about the sisters but about a place so remote and unfriendly that it only takes a couple of months for a tragedy to become a dark fairy tale the characters tell one another.… Beautifully written.
Minneapolis Star Tribune


Stunning…. Beautifully delineated scenes…. The situations remain strange in their specificities and universal in their familiarity… The mystery is worth reading until the very end.
NPR
 

Invigoratingly hard to classify…. [Phillips] ingeniously dismantl[es]… convention[s]…. The ending of Disappearing Earth ignites an immediate desire to reread the chapters leading up to it.
New Yorker


Thrilling…. This mystery takes you to a scrappy ice-bound town in Russia's frozen north. Rumors and rivalries, secrets and lies, all add up to a compelling portrayal of a community under siege.
People


Mesmerizing.…. It's the strength of Phillips's writing, her careful attention to character and tone, that will grip you right up until the final heart-stopping pages.
Vanity Fair


Elegant, ingeniously interwoven…. As a series of character studies, it’s brilliant…. But Phillips never stops tracing Disappearing Earth’s arc, tilting her tapestry toward a singularly satisfying ending.
Entertainment Weekly
 

[E]xceptional and suspenseful…. Phillips’s exquisite descriptions of the desolate landscape… are masterful throughout, as is her skill at crafting a complex and genuinely addictive whodunit. This novel signals the arrival of a mighty talent.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review) Cinematic…. A knockout novel that combines literary heft with a propulsive plot…. Phillips imagines a cold, desolate climate inhabited by characters who exude warmth and strength…. Dazzlingly original. —Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL
Library Journal


(Starred review) Accomplished and gripping…. Phillips’ spellbinding prose is saturated with… emotional intensity, as she subtly traces the shadows of Russia’s past and illuminates today’s daunting complexities of gender and identity, expectations and longing.
Booklist


[I]mmersive, impressive, and strikingly original…. An unusual, cleverly constructed thriller that is also a deep dive into the culture of a place many Americans have probably never heard of.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. In the first chapter, Alyona tells a story about a town that suddenly disappears when a wave washes it away. How is the theme of disappearance explored throughout the rest of the novel? How does this opening story relate to other examples of disappearances in the book? What does the title, Disappearing Earth, mean to you?

2. Before Alyona and Sophia went missing, another young woman, Lilia, disappeared too. How are these two crimes treated differently in their communities? How are they similar? How does the social, political, and economic climate of Kamchatka affect the way these victims are viewed and discussed? Do you see any similarities to the way people talk about crimes in your own community?

3. How do you think the sparsely populated Kamchatka setting informs the plot and characters? How do you think the story would be different if it were set somewhere else?

4. During the Soviet era, Kamchatka was a closed military zone, and it is now a remote tourist destination. How do the characters experience this transition to a post-Communist society differently? Consider these two passages from Katya’s and Valentina’s points-of-view:

Katya, pg. 39:
After the USSR collapsed, there were no longer any restrictions on travel, no stop to movement; the Soviet military bases that had constrained the entire peninsula were shuttered, so Kamchatka’s residents could finally explore their own land. Katya’s family had gone as far north as Esso to meet the natives with their reindeer herds, west to see steaming craters, and south to pull caviar out of what had become unpatrolled lakes. She spent her youth in the brief reckless period between the Communists’ rigidity and Putin’s strength, and though she had grown into a boundary enforcer, inspecting imports and issuing citations, within herself there remained a post-Soviet child. Some part of her did crave the wild.

Valentina, pg. 52:
She grew up knowing the region at its best. Military funding used to stuff the stores with food. There were no vagrants, then, no salmon poachers, and no planes but Soviet military jets overhead. The peninsula was so tightly defended that even other Russians needed government permission to enter. But when the country changed, Kamchatka went down with it. A whole civilization lost. Valentina was sorry for her daughter, for all the children, who would grow up without the love of a motherland.

5. Discuss the theme of violence against women in the novel. What kinds of violence are represented in the book? What role does violence play in these women’s lives? What forms of violence are seen in public, and which take place in private?

6. The book is centered on one specific act of violence—the disappearance of the Golosovsky sisters. How does this crime affect the rest of the characters in the novel and the community of Kamchatka in its entirety?

7. Consider the following conversation between Chander and Ksyusha on pg 73:

"You haven’t noticed by now that you can’t trust them? They don’t care about us the same way they care about themselves." Ksyusha waited for Chander to voice an exception: Ruslan. He did not. In her thoughts, Ruslan slipped from a man she should defend to a man who might abandon—Ruslan could leave her so much more easily than she could leave him.

   How does Ksyusha’s relationship with Chander compare to her relationship with Ruslan? What draws her to each man? How do power dynamics factor into her relationships? What other examples of power dynamics are explored throughout the novel?

8. In addition to the white Russians, many indigenous communities and migrants live in Kamchatka. Discuss how the indigenous and migrant communities are viewed and treated. How does this affect how the police investigate the disappearances? Discuss Zoya’s attraction to the migrant construction workers. How does this compare to the other perspectives of migrants in the book?

9. The novel is written from the points of view of many different women. How are these women connected, and what draws them apart? Which woman’s story was the most memorable to you?

10. Examine the structure of Disappearing Earth. Why do you think Phillips decided to tell the story month by month and from different perspectives? How does this format help dissect a community in its entirety? How does the tension surrounding the investigation progress as the year goes on/the book progresses?

11. Although every chapter covers a month following the disappearance, one chapter breaks this mold and examines a specific date, the New Year’s chapter. Why do you think this specific date/chapter is highlighted?

12. Discuss Marina’s conversations with Alla Innokentevna about their missing daughters. What do these women have in common? How are their experiences different? Why do you think Phillips chose to share Marina’s perspective toward the end of the novel rather than earlier in the book? Why do you think she chose the festival celebrating cultural minorities as the context for Marina’s and Alla’s meeting?

13. The final chapter of the book reveals a shocking ending. Why do you think Phillips chose to end the novel in this way? When the story of the disappearing town resurfaces, how are we reminded of the theme of disappearing? How is it symbolic of the missing girls’ fate?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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