Lost Believers by Irina Zhorov
Lost Believers is a novel inspired by true events, unfolding in 1970s Soviet Russia, where two women's lives intersect and take unexpected turns. Galina, a young geologist from Moscow, falls in love with her pilot, Snow Crane, during a mineral exploration trip in Siberia. Their discovery of a family living in isolation sets the stage for a life-changing meeting with Agafia, born into a family of Old Believers. As a friendship develops, the two women confront conflicting futures shaped by their backgrounds and the unforgiving forces of Soviet politics. The story delves into fate, ambition, and the impact of choices made in a turbulent era.
Zhorov sets the stage with ease, no doubt aided by her career in journalism. Allowing the introduction of the two characters to unfold, she takes her time and inserts flashbacks to prepare the reader for the gravity of the collision of the two separate worlds with Galina and Agafia's meeting. Agafia's family quickly acclimates to the newcomers, particularly her, as they swiftly adapt and incorporate the outside world into their tiny isolated bubble.
Journalists don't often transition well to writing long-form pieces of fiction — particularly when there seems to be an obligation to tell a story that is based on real events, to whatever degree. The great dupe of fiction is that none of what we read is real, but that it could be. The author must convince the reader that it is life-like and that the characters exist off the page. Zhorov's inability to leave journalism behind and approach her novel with a Svengali air of sanctioned deception is where the shortcomings of this book start.
The pace slows tremendously once Galina and her pilot, Snow Crane leave before the harsh winter. (Snow Crane is a nickname given by Agafia upon meeting him, before which he was simply known as Galina's no-name pilot — and then he is unbelievably called Snow Crane for the remainder of the book, even by Galina — even away from the taiga.) With very little dialogue, and more than an arm's length of removal between the characters and the reader, the remote third-person narrative that switches between Galina and Agafia for the majority of the book is at odd's with the intention of a character study here. There is no intimacy, no internal access to either Agafia or Galina.
This distance and tone, almost disinterested in itself, feels like a news article — maybe a magazine feature, at most. There’s a finality to the passages that makes it feel as though it’s constantly setting up for a scene to open up — something that almost never happens — or is working on wrapping up the story. And, at some random spot like 30% in, it’s hard to imagine what could be written on the intervening pages that warrants such a length.
The exacerbation of the tone is made worse (and quite boring) by Zhorov leaning so heavily into telling rather than showing — it is constant. Which is odd, given the approach to a character study when we should more readily feel what the character is feeling and the choices with which they struggle. This felt more like the outline of a screenplay (sans dialogue) rather than a novel, which underscored that most of this played out in the author's head, rather than it being written to play out properly in mine.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This affected neither my opinion of the book nor the content of my review.
