A boy of 11 lives through the siege of Sarajevo as his family and friends die around him. He suffers terrible physical and mental trauma. With his mother, sister and granny, he arrives in Canada five years later as a refugee. The people there (here) are nice but stupid and ineffectual. He gradually takes his own path to recovery.
There is a lot in this book that is intense and gripping. It’s a visceral exploration of civil war and civil society from the point of view of a youth who cannot escape them, and Katja Rudolph gives the reader a textured sense of the reality. I could see what it’s like living under a siege, with little food and snipers shooting down the streets, as well as the drugged-up life of a deeply alienated kid in suburban Toronto or in jail. It’s pretty scary. Rudolph shows how people make foolish decisions, or get pushed into them, or get dragged along whether they decide or not. Even when motivated by the best intentions, in bad circumstances they make bad choices. Jevrem’s pacifist father feels he has to fight. Jevrem adopts bizarre ways to try to help people whom he thinks need his help.
In spite of the grim scenes, the book is a positive one. Jevrem’s mother and his sister find their own ways to cope, even if they appear a bit fragile. Jevrem launches himself on a long, complex journey to a better future, which ultimately seems to work out. This gets a bit mythical in the last part of the book, although it still seems to me to be well grounded in reality.
Rudolph makes a recurring theme of the stories people tell themselves, national and family stories and myths. Jevrem’s granny keeps retelling the stories of her life as a young Yugoslav partisan fighting the Nazis with Tito, and building the country after the war. Jevrem takes inspiration from her heroism and her victories. But her stories of surviving in the forest have parallels to Jevrem’s family starving in Sarajevo, and her building a railway while writing to her separated love sounds a bit like she’s in a forced labour camp. Her stories are idealized, justifying what she went through, although they, perhaps happily, give Jevrem the inspiration he needs to make himself a new life.
When I first read the novel, I was a bit disappointed in the ending – it seemed a bit too idealized as Jevrem is re-inspired to take a productive new role in his life. But on further thought, I realized that in fact the whole book is told from Jevrem’s point of view, and so is the ending. It is idealized because that’s how he sees it. His ending is a story that he is telling himself and if it keeps him going on a good path, that’s a good thing. If he finds out later that it’s not entirely realistic, perhaps he’ll find another story that will keep him going.
I liked this book quite a lot. It’s gritty and realistic, but it also raises questions about society, ranging from ideology and war to how we deal with children of war and refugees. One question that it raises for me is, what stories do we as Canadians tell ourselves about our values and our reality? Our national myths about our welcoming society and our supportive social systems have some gaping holes as Jevrem sees them. ( )

This is an extremely powerful book, detailing the self-destruction and ultimate resurrection of a boy whose family and world are torn apart by war. The narrative is so strong that one experiences the utter despair that Jevrem succumbs to. The extreme nihilism that he resorts to becomes understandable as the only way to survive after losing family, country and home to war.
Not an easy book to read, and in fact, the author is dedicated to promoting books that are uncomfortable, with her website www.bookrattle.com. This is her debut novel, and I'll be on the lookout for her next book! ( )