Not Russian

June 1, 2022

Watching the news with his wife one night in 2015, journalist Pavel Vladimirovich learns that terrorists have taken hostages at a church near Moscow and that their leader is an old friend, Vadim Petrovich. Pavel is asked to negotiate with Vadim but instead finds himself working through personal details, from their first enigmatic meeting to Vadim's wartime experiences in Chechnya and Ukraine, which leads directly to the terrorists' shocking demand. The Isaac Babel Prize--winning Shevelev is a novelist and freelance journalist covering Russia for Radio Liberty.

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 15, 2022
The sardonic and incisive English-language debut from Russian journalist and novelist Shevelev imagines a massive hostage situation in a church outside Moscow. In 2015, disenchanted newspaper journalist Pavel Volodin, whose present concerns involve whether he and his wife should install a TV in the kitchen (“Obviously, it would be better to throw the television off the balcony considering what’s on it,” Pavel narrates), is called into action when the terrorist occupying the church and holding 100 people hostage demands to speak to him. The terrorist is Vadik Seryegin, whom Pavel met in 1998 during negotiations between Russia and Chechnya. He also helped bring Vadik, a Russian prisoner of war, back to Russia—winning a little celebrity for himself in the process. In between Pavel’s series of trips to the church to speak with Vadik during the crisis, Shevelev traces the effects /of Putin’s political decisions on the country and on the two men’s lives (Vadik’s disaffection with Russian politics and Pavel’s increasing cynicism) and gradually fleshes out Vadik’s sole demand, which is for Putin to apologize for all the wars. While the frequent references to contemporary Russian figures will be lost on casual readers, Shevelev does a great job distilling recent history into a tragic human drama. This is worth a look.

Starred review from October 1, 2022

A freelance journalist who no longer collaborates with Russian state or private media, Shevelev offers a blistering critique of his country's policies and people in his first novel to be translated into English. In 2015, a shriek from his wife alerts journalist Pavel Vladimirovich to something momentous on the news: terrorists have taken hostages at a church near Moscow, and their leader is Vadim Petrovich, whom Pavel had rescued while reporting on the fighting in Chechnya. Pavel soon learns that Vadim has requested him as negotiator, and when he arrives at the church, Vadim reveals his disgust with Russia's actions in both Chechnya and 2014 Ukraine and how badly Pavel misunderstood the facts of the rescue mission he vaingloriously rushed to cover. Vadim's demands are tough--Putin must apologize on live TV, or the hostages will be executed--and as Pavel struggles to find a solution, he condemns the Russian government for its mendacity and the Russian people for their passive acceptance in a piece he knows probably can't be published. When the end comes, it's both unexpected and the only thing that could have happened. VERDICT An incisive and suspenseful examination of potent issues; names and events may challenge, but the glossary helps.

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2022
A hostage crisis in a village near Moscow raises questions about Russian military aggression in recent years. A journalist named Pavel Vladimirovich, the book's narrator, becomes embroiled in the news in 2015 when a group of men take 112 people hostage in a church. The group's Russian leader, Vadim Petrovich Seryegin, known as Vadik, wants Pavel to serve as one of his negotiators. Pavel had helped get Vadik released when he was captured during the First Chechen-Russian War (1994-1996). Flashbacks and conversations between Pavel and Vadik fill in the subsequent years, touching on ethnic conflicts since the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 but mainly on the wars involving Chechnya and Ukraine. (Beyond the glossary provided, the author assumes a considerable knowledge of the relevant history.) Shevelev, a Russian journalist who has published another novel and collections of short stories, gradually reveals how Vadik became a terrorist and how Pavel grew cynical about news media--two paths that give the author room for mordant comments on politics, violence, police and KGB abuses, and journalism. While one man turns to threatened slaughter unless Putin publicly apologizes for the Chechnya and Ukraine wars, the other writes a six-page screed on those who do nothing, mainly Russians who fail to oppose the Kremlin: "A hundred people gathered on Pushkin Square in Moscow when the second war in Chechnya began and Grozny was completely leveled to the ground." (The translation by Baer and Vayner conveys well Pavel's savvy, rueful voice.) The central point is failure. Shevelev is quoted in introductory material saying that he turned to fiction because journalism stopped being an "effective tool" for change. Among Vadik's last comments to Pavel is: "I want to understand why all your words missed the mark." A taut, elegiac political thriller and a fierce swipe at Putin's efforts to make Russia great again.

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