Disappearing Earth

Beautifully written, thought-provoking, intense and cleverly wrought, this is the most extraordinary first novel from a mesmerising new talent. One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the north-eastern edge of Russia, two sisters are abducted. 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. Set on the remote Siberian peninsula of Kamchatka, Disappearing Earth draws us into the world of an astonishing cast of characters, all connected by an unfathomable crime. 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 provides a new understanding of the intricate bonds of family and community, in a Russia unlike any we have seen before. Praise for Disappearing Earth "A genuine masterpiece, but one that is easily consumed in a feverish stay-up-all-night bout of reading pleasure. It's as much a portrait of humanity as of a small Kamchatka community." Gary Shteyngart "Suspenseful, original and compelling, Disappearing Earth is a strange and haunting voyage into a strange and haunting world-the faraway Kamchatka in Russia's Far East, which is brought by this debut novelist to eerie, vibrant and unsettling life." Simon Sebag-Montefiore , author of The Romanovs "Julia Phillips is at once a careful cartographer and gorgeous storyteller. Written with passion and patience, this is the story of a people and the land that shapes them. A mystery of two missing girls burns at the center of this astonishing debut, and the complexity of ethnicity, gender, hearth and kin illuminates this question and many more." Tayari Jones , author of An American Marriage "I cannot speak too highly of Julia Phillips's thrilling, impeccably written and splendidly imagined story, set with rigorous attention to detail in one of the most volcanically dangerous and beautifully remote corners of the planet. An exciting beginning from an author whose literary future looks set to be stellar." Simon Winchester "Mesmerizing . . . The mystery of two sisters' disappearance alternately ebbs and intensifies over the course of a year, [as] each chapter dips into the life of a different girl or woman [on] Kamchatka. The story reads as a page-turner without relying on any cheap narrative tricks to propel it forward, and the strength of Phillips's writing-her careful attention to character and tone-will grip you right up until the final heart-stopping pages." Vanity Fair "A stunning, powerful debut novel. Phillips's characters [have] deep humanity; her portrayal of Kamchatka is superb. The novel's many characters are introduced in the preface, which calls to mind all those classic Russian novels with sprawling casts. But at the same time, Disappearing Earth is utterly contemporary. Has there ever been a novel, even by Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, set in such a strange, ancient, beautiful place, with its glaciers and volcanoes and endless cold? It's a place where miracles might happen: Phillips's novel dares to imagine the possibilities." Arlene McKanic , BookPage (starred review: Top Pick) "Brilliant, spectacular-a wonderful book. Julia Phillips's exquisite, detailed writing drew me in from the very first page of Disappearing Earth. I fell in love with each and every poignantly rendered character, even as I couldn't keep my eyes off the central mystery of the two missing girls. The novel is both a riveting page-turner and a gorgeous exploration of love, one that circles around a magnetic core of loss. It has lodged itself deep in my heart." Jean Kwok , author of Girl in Translation "Julia Phillips's novel is vividly real, but it reads at times like a suspenseful fairy tale. Here are portraits of different women with a shared yearning for autonomy, in a land inhospitable to it. Here, too, is a story in which, against all odds, they do not give up hope. Disappearing Earth is a brave, affecting accomplishment." Christine Schutt , author of Pure Hollywood "Disappearing Earth is a rare achievement: haunting and complex; intense yet subtle; sophisticated yet unputdownable; moving yet never sentimental; foreign yet somehow familiar. And it snaps shut at the end with dark poise. Julia Phillips possesses a unique talent, and I can't wait for her next book." Lorraine Adams , author of Harbor "This exquisite debut reads like a secret being whispered to your ears only. Julia Phillips so smoothly evokes the quiet rage, breathtaking tenderness and searing discomfort of a human connection." Suki Kim , author of Without You, There is No Us "Julia Phillips writes in clean, sharp lines that belie an almost frightening depth, and a clarity of eye that renders a complex and gut-wrenching vision of the Kamchatka region and its people. More than once, I gawped at this book: there are no seams, no sentimentality, not a single untrue thought from start to finish. With Disappearing Earth, Phillips accomplishes in her first book what most writers can't glimpse in a lifetime." Bill Cheng , author of Southern Cross the Dog "Disappearing Earth is not only a viscerally wide-ranging introduction to the land and culture of the Kamchatka Peninsula, as well as a missing persons thriller-as beautifully written as it was, I still couldn't turn the pages fast enough-it's also a wrenching meditation on the agonies of those losses to which we never fully adjust. This is a dazzlingly impressive first novel." Jim Shepard , author of The Book of Aron 'A feat of literary suspense. I felt like a wide-eyed kid reading Julia Phillips's Disappearing Earth. I could live in her portrayal of this remote part of the world forever.' Sloane Crosley , author of I Was Told There'd Be Cake 'Exceptional, satisfying . . . a sophisticated and powerful literary thriller . . . a knock-out. By taking us through the year after the sisters were kidnapped, character by character, slowly spiraling back, Phillips is able to strike at so much of what ails not only Russia but also most tradition-bound areas all over the world today. The stitches of Phillips's language make you go, Damn, that's good. And the ending can't be described without borrowing some of Phillips's own language: it peels open your chest and squeezes out the stuff we read fiction to feel.' The Los Angeles Review of Books "An addictive page-turner about the search for two missing girls. Phillips's writing draws you in: Disappearing Earth is everything you could want from a book and more-a fast-paced yet thoughtful thriller full of human emotion and endurance. " Cosmopolitan '[A] superb debut...the women who populate Phillips' novel are so intrinsically and intelligently identified with their region that it's impossible to understand or even consider them without Phillips's precise evocation of Kamchatka. She describes the region with a cartographer's precision and an ethnographer's clarity...[A] deep examination of loss and longing' New York Times 'Phillips is so skilled at conveying place and people, you can feel the chill of the shadow cast by Soviet-style apartment buildings, smell the blood soup, taste the burn of cheap vodka drunk too fast to numb the pain...These are stories of women the world over.' USA Today 'Phillips' slant is American, but in the tradition of great Russian art - from Tolstoy through to the films of Andrey Zvyaginstsev - Disappearing Earth tells delicate, impassioned, small human stories within sweeping, brutal, imposing political realities...' Entertainment Weekly 'Fascinating, immensely moving' Wall Street Journal