How do you process an extreme yet deeply personal event from afar? Endling starts as a story about three women involved in the romance tour industry in Ukraine who embark on a wild kidnapping of bachelors to send a message to a missing radical activist mother. But then Russia invades. In real life, the author stops her story. Recalibrates. What would happen now? What can she do? How does she imagine life, an ending for the people of the country - her home, though she now lives in Canada?

There is a zany, dark humor that runs throughout the story. But it masks the chaos and the despair and the destruction. You keep going. You figure it out. You save what you can.

Such an incredible book - real-time, honest, inventive and deeply relatable. This could be you, the author screams at the page. Lest we forget.

This is one of those cases in which I appreciate the intention of the author in constructing the narrative the way she did but have to admit it did not really work for me. The foundation narrative was intriguing but the autofictional elements / the chapters in which Maria Reva directly speaks to the reader and recounts her writing and thinking process simply did not weave in nicely. I suppose this was part of the intended effect - to show the extent of disruption the invasion of Ukraine caused in all aspects of life, the inability to continue writing about other topics, the disjointment, the all-encompassing reality of the war. I understand that, I really do. And I do believe the novel Reva created to be one of extraordinary intentional creativity and one which makes a strong statement, something which often makes literature great. However, while I am all for social critique in literature, and all for factual texts about experiences as well, what Reva did here just did not work for me - it seemed too disjointed and constructed to really be powerful. The flaw, if you want to call it that, then, is that its execution did not excite my personal literary preferences. I find subtlety to be much more impactful than spelling things out. Still, this novel absolutely has its justification and an incisive and acute voice. Also, amazing to see such casual asexual representation!

This book was so much more than I expected. This review is inevitably going to be utter word vomit because I don't think I can possible put how I feel about this book into a concise paragraph.

What I knew going in was that the book followed a woman who gathered endangered snails traveling across Ukraine during the war. We initially follow this very character, Yeva, but then the perspective shifts and we follow Nastia and her sister Sol as they begin to work for a romance tour company as a bride and a translator. I felt a little disappointed when the perspective shifted as I really wanted to follow Yeva and her snails. But I was soon completely won over by the direction the novel was going in, only then to be hit with another shift in tone as the author injects herself into the story once Russia invades Ukraine during the writing of this book. Kherson, the city where her and her family are from and where her Grandfather still lives and refuses to leave, is being invaded by Russian troops and missiles. The tone shift was quite disconcerting and took me out of the story but we were soon thrown back in and the book became something new, where the fiction was being infiltrated by the writers real thoughts about the war and the worry over her Grandfathers safety.

I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone. It's just indescribable. The characters and story are brilliant, and all told in a way I've never quite encountered before. I will definitely return to this book and can imagine the reading experience for the second time will be completely different, though I hope just as incredible.

Endling by Maria Reva is a very original and highly topical read. Complex and with a lot going on but interesting and effective.

4,5 - This smart novel combines a wild plot with metafictional elements that make a thought-provoking whole.

The setting is Ukraine and our main character is beautiful, independent Yeva who is obsessed with saving Ukraine's threatened snail species from extinction. To finance her mobile lab, she goes on dates with Western men who have come to Ukraine via a 'bridal agency'.

When a colleague of Yeva develops a wild plot to kidnap some of these bachelors, she decides to play along.

But when the plan finally reaches execution (at around 40% into the novel), war breaks out and the novel starts taking unexpected twists and turns as well, lifting it to another level and morphing into something unique, sharp and exciting. I just went along for the ride and thought it was excellent.

A deeply strange and excellent story set in Ukraine about bride agencies, protest, and snail conservation. I was absolutely sucked into the weirdness of it all and was rooting for all three women (although Yeva was my favourite). A unique story!

Sadly this book was not for me. I think I tried to read it whilst getting out of a reading slump and it wasn’t the right choice for me. I will try to pick it up again in the future though.

Really interesting and well crafted. I feel like I have a lot to process after reading this. Having read a lot of books from the point of view of people living through war/occupation this was very fresh and vital. I adored the main characters, but especially Yeva, and the meta fiction was really well done. Overall a fantastic book.

In Maria Reva’s Endling, we are told the story of three Ukrainian brides-for-sale as they kidnap thirteen bachelors in a stunt gone awry with the invasion of Russian forces. Reva creatively and emotionally cuts through the fiction with dry passages from her writting experience, as a Ukrainian-Canadian writer during the very real Ukrainian-Russian war. Endling takes the reader through a maze of emotional responses from; rage to humour, suspense, empathy and ultimately humanity.

In this meta-fiction is a mixture of narrators; the son, Pasha (bachelor), of Ukrainians looking for a better life abroad, the confusing diaspora of nationality, mirroring the authors own; the three Ukrainian women, Yeva, Nastia and Sol (brides), battling with their own places in life—purpose, family—amongst the background of the Ukranian bombardment from Russia, mirroring the people experiencing the war vs. the ones watching from outside, and Reva herself as narrator, participant, and fictional character.

‘But where to begin? […] How to instead name the country they’d worked so hard to leave, were still pushing away from, because it was easier to write off your birthplace than to miss it.’

Reva creates safe spaces from the terror of war in the personal moments with these fictional characters, all while chronicling the experience of it first hand. We can’t help but remember the tone she writes in during her back and forth with the attitudes of those outside of Ukraine twisting peace and hope into a digestible article. This informs the rest of our reading experience, wanting to find a conclusion to the story where there is safety, however knowing this is not a simple feat. The outsiders hope
for peace, while the Ukrainian victims are using memes to laugh, grasping normality, forced to grow vendettas against the Russians destroying their homes and their lives.

‘The sky gave a whistle, and Nastia crouched into a tighter ball. The rocket sounded like it was coming directly for her, like it knew her intimately, had pinpointed her through the building’s concrete, despised and loved her.’

Through the gloom of the war happening in the backdrop the reader feels, despite it’s irrationality, hope for a snail—Yeva’s last snail, the possible endling of all her endlings—when hope seems impossible. As we wait for Lefty to lure out the other last of it’s species, we oscillate from willing it haste so the brides and, begrudgingly, the bachelors can seek safety from the incoming war to forgetting about said war entirely, focusing only on the snail species’ salvation. The reader then feels remorse for wanting to know how Yeva, Nastia and Sol’s story ends, even Pasha and the other bachelors. We slip back into it easily and as Reva loops threads of reality we are again reminded of the war that has been active but in many ways forgotten by those on the outside.

‘Yeva wrapped her fingers around Lefty’s shell, slid her hand under her layers of clothing, pressed him against the warmth of her chest like a newborn, would’ve prayed if she were the type.’

The range of tonality explored in Endling is vast as is the switch between tense, to take from Reva’s own metaphor on writing, successfully threading the yurt fabric together. The kidnapping stunt showcases two daughters desperation for their mother, the mother’s life as a women’s rights activist, the macho dialogue of the bachelors and the descriptions of each one, Pasha’s vain insecurities, Kevin as the outsider’s hope for peace above all. Reva’s own entrance into the story and weaving throughout as victim, outsider and architect, combined with the multiple layers of metaphor and symbolism, made this a book I couldn’t put down.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-arc.

The blurb definitely didn't prepare me for the rest of this story... an interesting piece of metafiction about Russia's war in Ukraine (as it's happening), bride agencies, and snail extinction, the story did keep me on my toes but ultimately felt too messy for me. The storyline began to lose cohesiveness around the 40% mark and I found the whole kidnapping arc too unbelievable. Paul's POV didn't add much for me and the grandfather storyline also got me really confused. I think if this was marketed as metafiction, I would've been more accepting of the disjointed POVs but unfortunately, I wasn't expecting it and ended up feeling whiplash with a lot of the all-over-the-place plot.

The book starts with the story of Yeva, a nerdy, science, snail obsessed, eco warrior, who happens also to be a stunning, glamourous, sexy Ukrainian woman in her twenties. Her passion is the former, but, as no one is really interested in saving snails from extinction, when Yeva is coaxed into being a Ukrainian Bride in a ‘Romance Company’, she welcomes the opportunity to fund her labs and tech.

The Romance world is strange (at least to me), promoted as happier, easier going, and equally as beautiful women (but more naturally so) to those who are from the West, the tours bring bachelors from America (mostly) to the Ukraine, to chat, date and mingle with these women. They are encouraged to take the women on dates and buy them presents, the company making a cut on everything they spend. For some they find love and take their bride home.

For Yeva it is perfect, she gets gifts which she exchanges for cash and also gets paid for her time at the events and she sets off about saving the snail populations of Ukraine. Including her favourite snail Lefty. However, Yeva’s mother is distressed that her daughter is not married and uses every opportunity to tempt her daughter to settle and have children. But Yeva is not interested in either.

Up to here – about 20-25% through the book – I loved it. Such a random premise, snails, and romance tours.. the pressure from her mother, the different priorities of Yeva… but then the book, switches to Nastia, another bride, who we have just recently met through Yeva’s eyes. Nastia, also has little interest in entertaining the men other than on a superficial level, but she has a bigger quest.

And here it fell apart for me. I have no idea why with Nastia’s odd plan, why Yeva would entertain it. This bit just doesn’t hang together for me, and then we meet a new character, Paul from the US, who is also Pacha from the Ukraine and I read on with a dread at where this story may be going.

I don’t want to give the story away, so at a high level, for me, some of the decisions of the characters are implausible, from Yeva’s involvement, to Pacha’s flipflopping, the way the Romance men respond, and the desire to rescue the snail at the height of the war. It was just too far fetched.

The metafictional approach which sees the book end in it’s middle and the author break the fourth wall through a commentary with her agent, was okay. I didn’t feel like it added to the storyline, but it did definitely add to the intensity and fear of what it must have been like for family members of those in Ukraine. It was odd, then the story recommenced.

No doubt this book is incredibly well researched, is witty and at times quite raw. It is also brave and clever. The setting of the book just prior to the war and then bringing the author’s own fears and commentary to scenes, does keep it quite confronting. I just wished for me that it was a storyline that was more believable.

However, perhaps it is just me?

A massive thank you to #Netgalley and #LittleBrownBookGroup for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Maria Reva’s Endling is one of the best novels of 2025. Reva offers a blisteringly clever, metafictional work that transports the reader to Ukraine, moments just before the Russian invasion in 2022. But what sets Endling apart is its ingenious approach to this often-emotional theme, infusing the novel with dark humour, meticulous research, and a deeply personal perspective, resulting in a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts that both confront and transcend the horrors of war.

At first glance, Endling may not seem interesting, with a quirky description of Yeva, an itinerant snail scientist, cataloguing and rescuing and reintroducing endangered species across Ukraine – with Lefty, apparently the last of his kind – while working on a marriage company. Yeva eventually meets Nastia and her sister Sol, working in the same dating agency, until the moment they dare to kidnap foreign bachelors, at the same time as the war breaks out. What Reva manages to convey in her novel is nothing short of brilliance. Yeva is a charming character, and dare say an accurate caricature of a scientist grappling with endless bureaucracy and grant requests to fund her research. From the start, the reader glimpses into Yeva’s life – including her interesting/relatable/not-enough-explored sexuality – and inherent scepticism. “Rumor had it the girl was into God. Of course she was, sad thing. The religious ones made the perfect victims, used to bowing under threat from above. In the past Yeva would have risen to the rescue, but she was done caring.” The chapters alternate between introducing Nastia and Sol, and later, Pasha, a first-generation Ukrainian expatriate living in Canada (here, a parallel between Reva’s character and her nationality).

At its heart, Endling is not simply a war novel; although, paradoxically, it is. It is a layered exploration of the aggression of war that causes insufferable and irreparable loss but also rekindles the victims’ resilience and unity in the face of absurdity. Reva’s narrative leads her characters through surreal and poignant moments while they desperately try to save Lefty (and themselves). There is a clear message of ecological preservation, and you will be surprised at how important snails are to the environment. I had the opportunity to learn about snails from a Ukrainian professor while she was developing a project using snails as rations to fight malnutrition – and fifteen years later, here I am reading and reviewing a book about a snail researcher! The marriage industry is another important point in this novel, and it parallels numerous other ‘black-marketish’ groups linked to sexual exploitation. However dark these themes are, Reva competently balances the weight of human nature with moments of surprising humour.

Reva’s writing is sharp, evocative, experimental and as ironic as COVID-19. She fuses her metafiction with vivid imagery, clever commentary, structure and formatting. To detail all would be a disservice to the reader. The brilliance of Reva’s storytelling lies in its ability to pivot between sharp humour and harrowing truths. I had the most fun reading this novel and connecting the references and inspirations between reality and fiction. A truly mind-bending, atemporal novel. Jokingly, Reva even plays with the reader as she may not be the most reliable author since she keeps correcting her memories about her life’s details, part of the metafictional aspect, smudging wishful thinking and reality – one of my favourite parts of the book. Skilful writing.

Maria Reva’s Endling is a masterpiece that deserves a place on every reader’s bookshelf or digital device. Its blending of dark humour, personal insight, irony, environmentalism, feminism, and meticulous research offers a fresh and unforgettable perspective on persistence in the face of the impossible. More than just a war novel, it is a portrayal of resilience, female rage, and humanity. Unlike other literary novels exploring the suffering caused by war, Endling stands out as a beacon of resilience. No more wars!

Rating: 5.0/5

Disclaimer: I received an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

"Wasn't your novel originally going to be about a marriage agency in Ukraine?"
"Null and void... I was writing about a so-called invasion of bachelors to Ukraine, and then an actual invasion happened. Even in peacetime I felt queasy writing right into not one but two Ukrainian tropes, 'mail-order brides' and topless protesters. To continue now seems unforgiveable." [loc. 1457]
The first half of Endling is the story of Yeva, a malacologist ('despite its inclusion of mollusks without backbones') who's determined to save endangered snail species. It hasn't gone well: she is down to one living specimen, Lefty, whose shell coils the opposite way to others of his species. (Yeva, similarly, coils the other way: she's asexual, though she has a passionate friendship with a conservationist.) Lefty is an endling, the last of his variant. Perhaps Yeva is too.

To finance her mobile lab, Yeva works for Romeo Meets Yulia, an agency that does 'romance tours' for Western men.You meet the most interesting people at these events. Yeva is approached by two sisters, Nastia and Sol, who also work for the agency. Inspired by their infamous mother, a flamboyant activist, they've decided to kidnap one hundred bachelors as a publicity stunt, and they'd like to use Yeva's van. It's a lab, Yeva points out, and twelve is the absolute limit.

So off they set, three women and a dozen bewildered Westerners (well, eleven: Pasha lives in Vancouver, but was born in Ukraine), on a road trip to nowhere. And suddenly there are loud noises outside...

The quotation at the top of this review comes from the middle of the book, where everything falls apart: reality intrudes, in the form of the Russian invasion of February 2022. The author also intrudes: that's her talking to her agent, trying to place this novel, to sell articles about Ukrainian humour. And the book seems to end, with Acknowledgements ('I would also like to thank Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs for including my name on their personal sanctions list of Canadians who are now forbidden from entering their country. One of the biggest honours of my literary career' [loc. 1620]) and A Note on the Type.

But we're not even halfway through, and for the rest of the novel Reva's own voice enters the novel, worrying about her grandfather in Kherson, wondering whether one can write fiction about tragedy and war. Not that Yeva and her companions vanish. Instead, Yeva's conservationist friend tells her he's spotted another left-coiling snail, a female, in the background of a teenager's video about not wanting to leave his city. The city is Kherson...

I loved the playfulness of this novel, even in the midst of horror: I warmed to Yeva and to Reva and to the activist sisters trying to lure their absent mother into view with a high-profile stunt. And somehow even the snails were interesting -- not words I thought I would ever type.

UK publication is 3rd July 2025: Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy!

4.5 stars. 2022 in the Ukraine must have been a strange time. Quirky novel with deeper meaning and lots of snails.

This is a strange book in a good way!

On the surface we follow a scientist who studies species of snail that are about to go extinct (endlings) and a couple of sisters who don’t know where their mum is. They meet through a marriage agency that connects Ukrainian women with western ‘bachelors’ and then end up on a crazy road trip on a mobile lab. And being set in contemporary Ukraine, Russian aggression can’t be ignored.

But beneath that I think this is about how we write our stories to help us make sense of the world. All complete stories have a beginning, a middle and an end, but can you tell a believable story if you don’t know the ending? We all do this everyday but Reva looks at what that really means.

The war is an example which is ongoing as she writes, and occasionally there are meta inserts where the author tells us what has happened in the real world since she’s started and how that impacts the fictional story. Characters also get new information that challenges the story they have told themselves and you see how they use this to either change or reinforce what they already believed.

It also questions how much agency the storyteller has. When events unfold in a different way to the original plan can you continue to tell the same story or does it lack a believability so the author has to change the direction to make the story work? She tries both in this and lets the reader feel the differences.

Overall, this is a book that will stick with me for a while.

After the incredible reviews, I was so excited to read this. However, I have just finished and an enormously relieved that I am done with it.

Undoubtedly, the novel breaks apart the novel as a constrruct; meta-fiction, at its most inventive,

Part novel, part dialogue, part application form, part commentary - It felt disjointed, as it was intended to, no doubt. I appreciated what the author has done but I did not enjoy it one bit!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

"I need to keep fact and fiction straight, but they keep blurring together."

Endling by Maria Reva is a brilliant meta-fictional debut novel, darkly humorous but with important messages about love, survival in the face of aggression, and the need for resistance against US and Russian territorial aggression, and surely must feature in this year's Booker Prize.

The novel became as a more conventional one, although with an unusual subject matter, combining the marriage-tourism industry in Ukraine with the preservation of snail species on the verge of extinction, but which was derailed by the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion, leading the author to at first abandon the project, but then pick it up with the meta-fictional slant, where the novel contains the process of writing it:

"Explain the inspiration for your project or why you wish to undertake it at this time:

My opus draws inspiration from the wellspring of narrative prowess exuded by Deb Olin Unferth's canonical work, Barn 8, wherein the notions of abduction and social justice deftly intertwine, as well as the groundbreaking metafictional elements prominently displayed within the protonovelistic oeuvre of Salvador Plascencia's The People of Paper. Thus fortified by the literary beacons that have illuminated the path before me, Endling seeks to transcend the boundaries of conventionality while being grounded in the timeless questions of the human condition. Now that Russia is conducting a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the central conflict woven into the delicate fabric of my novel, namely the influx of Western suitors into Ukraine, has been subjugated-or ripped apart, to keep with the metaphor—by a far more violent and destructive narrative. My novel (postnovel? yet-to-be defined entity?) needs further tailoring to reflect these rapidly changing circumstances."

The author has said in an interview in The Rumpus that "I think the novel is itching to be ripped apart again", and the book e.g. contains a fake ending part way through, inspired by Salvador Plascencia's book The People of Paper and this interview with him where he expresses similar sentiments. The highlight of the fake ending for me was this take on the usually rather po-faced notes on the typeface that many books include:

"A NOTE ON THE TYPE
This book, a novel, was set in Serifus Libris, a typeface designed by distinguished Italian engraver Giuseppe Pizzinini (1852-1913).

Conceived as a private handkerchief embroidery type to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his marriage to Countess Johanna Trauttmansdorff of Austria, and modernized before his untimely death by screw press, this type displays the tireless qualities of a master craftsman intent on weaving letter to letter, sentence to sentence, chapter to chapter, to create a sense of cohesion or an illusion thereof. In this way he shaped manifold manuscripts, however unshapely in their nascent form, into acceptable books. An ardent worker, Pizzinini remained steadfast at his beloved printing press even on his (rare) breaks, arranging and rearranging letter blocks with his apprentices to see who could spell the heaviest word. He has been credited as the inventor of the game now commonly known as Scrabble."

There is a further strong resonance to the novel in 2025, which Reva mentions in the Rumpus interview: "Some people are turning Trump’s rhetoric about Canada-as-fifty-first-state into a joke. But we need to feel the power of a statement like that because it’s very close to how Putin talked about Ukraine leading up to various stages of aggression. How the border is supposedly artificial, illegitimate, that all Ukrainians want to be part of Russia, all sorts of falsehoods. Trump is saying Canadians want to be part of the US, that it would help our economy and security, that we’re basically one people because of our shared language and history."

This could, if at all, only have been a late inclusion in the novel, given Trump's Putinesque rhetoric is reasonably recent (December 2024 originally, and more seriously from around March 2025). But the it is apposite that the novel does indeed contain a passing but important reference to Laura Secord, a Canadian heroine of the fight against previous American acts of aggression.

"The Canadian hero Laura Secord came to his mind—she who’d waded thirty kilometers through forest and mud and mosquitoes two hundred years ago to warn the British colonies of an American attack, then become immortalized as a chocolate brand."

Brilliant

While Endling starts out as funny and a little bizarre, Reva takes her readers into a very personal account of what it’s like to witness a war in your homecountry from afar.

The main story of Yeva and the sisters Nastia and Sol, who start out in the Ukrainian marriage industry, each for their own reasons, is intercepted by Reva’s short chapters on writing about the war. It is a deft portrayal of life suspending literature.

Sometimes the pacing felt like it changed, which made some parts feel a little hurried. Overall Endling is a great book which I’ll happily recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

What a stunning book. The premise of a snail scientist who gets involved with 2 sisters trying to sabotage the international bridal industry was already intriguing. I was further sucked in by the author’s interesting narrative style & how she breaks the fourth wall.

Overall, it was a moving story about Ukraine and family—both one’s own and one’s found family. I couldn’t put it down!

A brilliantly moving yet metafictional, impactful but intelligent treatment of Russian war with Ukraine.

Maria Reva was born in Ukraine (and has relatives still in Canada) although as a mainly Russian speaker, grew up in Vancouver Canada, did an MFA in Texas and published a well-received short story collection “Good Citizens Need Not Fear” (a darkly humorous series of stories set in and around an apartment block in Ukraine and based on family anecdotes) published in 2020 at which point she said in interviews she was working on a debut novel set partly in Texas and partly Ukraine.

Two years later, immediately after the Russian invasion, she tried to pitch stories on diaspora and local Ukrainian humour in the face of war to local newspapers but was told it was not the tone US/Canadian readers were looking for. She also revealed in other interviews that her grandfather (also the family archivist) was still living near the family dacha in Kherson and refusing to evacuate.

And all of this biographical detail is not just directly relevant for this book’s conception but even – part way through - plays out in its pages.
The novel begins quirkily with two storylines that quickly intersect.

In the first Yeva is a malacologist (a term she prefers to the more strictly accurate gastropodologist) - a snail expert; but also a eclipsazoologist (a studier of extinct animals) – as her specialty is finding endangered species of snails, rescuing them and attempting to revive their populations in captivity before ideally reintroducing them to ecologically protected zones. In practice the latter has happened less – and instead as she toured around Ukraine in a specially designed mobile laboratory - her experience is more of finding “endlings” – the last example of a soon to be extinct species – and time stamping their extinction. Now – as talk of Russia’s build-up of forces on Ukraine’s borders gets stronger – she is touring the country “restituting” her remaining snails while contemplating her own suicide.

Yeva’s laboratory is funded not by grants but by guest participation in “bride” parties for Western bachelors on marriage tours – and the second strand is about one such full-time bride-to-be Nastia and her interpreter (and also sister) Sol. The two are the daughters of the founder of Komod – a notorious protest troupe (think Pussy Riot) – who has now deserted them and Yeva’s participation in exactly the sort of thing her mother most opposes is largely designed to provoke their mother when she does reappear.

And when she does not – Nastia devises and then executes a plan to lure twelve of the most media friendly bachelors (a thirteenth – Pasha a returned exile – joins accidentally) into Yeva’s van promising an escape room experience followed by an exclusive party, but instead with the intention of making them hostages. This first part ends with the crack of an explosion – which we know is the start of the Russian invasion.

And that is where the novel really takes off – with the explosion not so much demolishing the walls of the tenement block illustrated in the gap between Parts – as demolishing the fourth wall entirely. As the author then directly addresses the reader telling of her difficult discussions with her agent about her draft novel “A Happy Family Is But An Earlier Heaven” – about modern day firing squads in US states (set up as a backup method of execution due to a lethal injection drug shortage). And how she had to abandon her in progress novel as firstly it contained two Ukrainian tropes “mail order brides and topless protestors” which made her queasy even in peacetime, and secondly her premise of “a so-called invasion of Western bachelors” was made invalid and unforgiveable in lights of the actual invasion.

And while the author anxiously thinks of Ukraine – the bombed buildings she sees on the screen and the unknown situation of her aforementioned grandfather – her agent compares her novel attempt to George Sanders discussions about moving from short stories to novels and how he worked out how to stitch custom built yurts together into a mansion.

And from there we have: a series of letter exchanges with newspapers about a proposed essay; a grant application form for travel to Ukraine; a happy ending to the earlier novel – in which the three girls drop off the bachelors at the nearest border before rescuing the author’s grandfather; the acknowledgements/author profile and even typeface; a surreal exchange of messages with some yurt makers.

Before returning abruptly to the novel – and the predicament of the three girls (starting with minutes of a meeting they have as they come to terms with how to deal with the outbreak of war) and chapters which then alternate between them and Pasha (in the back of the lab with the other men – completely unaware of the invasion) and a dangerous cross Ukraine trip not, initially to rescue the grandfather (although that does come via the Canada based owner of the Bride Agency who claims to know where the two sister’s mother is and will trade that first for the safe delivery of the bachelors and later for an attempt to evacuate her own – but also the same - grandfather) but instead on a quest for a potential partner to Yeva’s one remaining snail – Lefty an anti-clockwise coiled snail who she had assumed was an endling of his own genetic mutation – with another Lefty spotted by one of her fellow snail-conserver-correspondents on a photo of an acacia tree in a field in war torn Kherson.

There is an extent to which the reader at first misses the more metafictional nature of the interim section and welcomes its rare reappearances (an Interlude in which the author moves forward to her own trip to Ukraine with her own sister in 2023 but then back to 2022 and the potential partner snail in Kherson; a series of alternate chapters when the trio finally arrive in Kherson and the grandfather’s apartment) – but instead the context of the writing of the novel reinforces its excellent execution to render this section firstly moving and then later shocking as the true horrors (as well as absurdities – the two not possible to disentangle) of the war emerge and terribly impact on the van’s passengers.

Really this is quite an exceptional novel

In almost the novel’s last words the author worries if her writing a novel based on a cataclysm means she is “no better than snail, sniffing out the softest, most rotten parts of a log to feast on. At least the snail digests the rot and excretes nutrients, useful”. Well this novel may not be useful but it has huge merit not just in a literary sense but in its artistic rendering of a way to write in the apparently antithetical to art midst of a personal, national and even global cataclysm.

As the book reminds us – George Sanders attempts at yurt stitching resulted in a Booker Prize – I would be not surprised if this does not lead to at least a Booker longlisting – and disappointed if it does not.

My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group for an ARC via NetGalley