Salutes on the Other Side

In Alexandra Shalashova’s novel, there are eleven narrators—they experience and interpret events differently, leaving no room for any reasonably objective version. These are little patients and caregivers in a sanatorium on the other side of a river, where children are evacuated from the City right before the start of the war. Soon they blow up the bridge connecting them to the outside world, and the children plunge into darkness. Every day they hear explosions—or are they fireworks salutes?—but they don’t know whether the war is still going on. Shortage of food, conflicts, a new informal hierarchy, the unseen presence of Evil that has no name— and violence blooms, fueled by endless loneliness and fear. One day a Soldier comes to the children and offers to take them out to people. But will they get there—or will they be taken straight to unknown invaders?