Pravda
By Edward Docx
(Mariner Books, Paperback, 9780618534401, 400pp.)
Publication Date: March 2008
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook
Categories: Literary
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A sweeping transcontinental novel of secrets and lies buried within a single family
Thirty-two-year-old Gabriel Glover arrives in St. Petersburg to find his mother dead in her apartment. Reeling from grief, Gabriel and his twin sister, Isabella, arrange the funeral without contacting their father, Nicholas, a brilliant and manipulative libertine. Unknown to the twins, their mother had long ago abandoned a son, Arkady, a pitiless Russian predator now determined to claim his birthright. Aided by an ex-seminarian whose heroin addiction is destroying him, Arkady sets out to find the siblings and uncover the dark secret hidden from them their entire lives.
Winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, Pravda is a darkly funny, compulsively readable, and hauntingly beautiful chronicle of discovery and loss, love and loyalty, and the destructive legacy of deceit.
Edward Docx is the author of the acclaimed The Calligrapher, named a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year. He lives in London.
1. The often quoted line from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet," might seem emblematic of many of the themes of identity in Pravda. For example, when Nicholas remembers his wife as "Maria, Masha, Mashka, Marushya," is he thinking of someone whose true identity surpassed definition, or someone who was a composite of many names, many cultures?
Docx has a gift for assessing “the exact shape and weight of other people’s inner selves, the architecture of their spirit,” and although the book teems with characters—the cast reaches nearly Dickensian proportions—even the most ancillary flare into being, vital and insistent.
The New Yorker
A novel so vivid it glows in the dark -- like truth.
The Washington Post
Longlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize, and with good reason: well written, vigorously plotted and perceptive about human nature. Kirkus Reviews, Starred
Caustic, hip, and highly recommended. Library Journal
Docx's ability to capture the feel of St. Petersburg, London, New York and Paris adds depth to this portrait of a family in turmoil. Drug addiction, sex, the emptiness of superficial relationships, poverty and music round out the ambitious narrative.
As the mystery of Maria's life and death is revealed, the haunting story hurtles toward a startling conclusion.
Docx has plumbed the depths of understanding and forgiveness with this fascinating book.
Tampa Tribune
This book is on these lists:
AudreyZ0520's Wish List by AudreyZ0520F Int'l - European by Hazelthyme
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