Published by St. Martin’s Press
August 9, 2016
326 Pages
LCCN
2016007227
ISBN 9781250081865 (hardcover)
ISBN 9781250081889 (e-book)
Summary by Marta Bozdek
This is Scott Stambach’s first novel, although he has previously published short fiction. It won the Alex Award (American Library Association award for books that have special appeal to young adults) and was nominated for the 2018 Dublin Literary Award. Ours is an adult reading group but the book could be suitable for older teens as the key protagonist is a 17-year-old, physically disabled young man who has lived his whole life in the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children in Belarus, where children who have been born with physical deformities or acquire illnesses due to fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident, live out all or part of their lives.
Through his writing Mr. Stambach vividly carries us into the world of these children and into the mind, and eventually heart, of Ivan Isaenko. One is impressed at how Mr. Stambach has managed to understand, visualize and then convey to the reader the children and their issues, the system and the staff who work in these facilities, without having visited them. Apparently, he was inspired to write this story after seeing the 2004 Academy Award winning documentary, Chernobyl Heart by the Irish charity Chernobyl Children’s Project International. He has stated that in this novel he wanted to give these children a voice, to explore how we all strive for love and connection and how we approach love and connection in different ways.
The novel is ostensibly a diary or a memorial as Ivan calls it, written by him in a writing marathon over seventy-seven hours from December 2 to 6 in 2005. This device creates a pacing for the novel that draws you in and makes it compelling reading.
This is how Ivan describes himself, “I’m seventeen years old, approximately male, and I live in an asylum for mutant children.” “There are two things I’ve learned over the years about my limits: (A) I can eventually, with enough time, sweat and sometimes blood, learn to do just about anything with only one arm (the only exception to this rule is cutting a hard-boiled egg), and (B) if there is a God, then I should thank Him for my thumb, since it is the only thing that makes (A) possible.” His descriptions of himself and the other children in the hospital are unstintingly real, seemingly unkind and occasionally mean spirited. He has grown into an intelligent young man who has gained his knowledge of the world through voracious reading of books lovingly supplied by his favourite nurse Natalya and his social skills (or lack of) through daily life in the hospital. As in the above self-descriptions, there is always humour mixed in with the darkness.
In the first part of the book, we learn, through Ivan’s eyes, about the hospital, the temporary as well as long-term patients, the staff, the daily routines and about Ivan as he describes his world and attempts to create some order and meaning out of this circumscribed life. But he is mostly an observer and a mischief maker for his own amusement. His attempts to find his own family, his parents, particularly his mother, are both heart wrenching and humorous.
His world changes when a new patient, Polina arrives. She is a recently orphaned 16-year old leukemia patient who has arrived for treatment. Ivan is drawn to her but does not know how to approach her and is very afraid of doing so. Eventually, they do establish a tenuous connection. They challenge each other and eventually this connection grows into a beautiful relationship and even love. Through this relationship, Ivan matures and grows, even overcoming his blood phobia to offer life and love to Polina.
The Epilogue provides a satisfying conclusion to the novel and our relationship with Ivan.
Scott Stambach’s debut novel is well worth reading and we look forward to future books with his gifts of imagination, story-telling and honest examination of life’s journeys.
Links on the background of the author and novel
Chernobyl Heart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ujAG_Ofj4M
Interview with Scot Stambach:
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/avidreader/episodes/2016-09-12T13_34_43-07_00
Chernobyl Nuclear Accident: For further background on the Chernobyl nuclear accident and various assessments and reports over the decades see https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/chernobyl.html. In particular, note the WHO and Chernobyl Forum reports.
You may also be interested in reading the 2006 The Other Report on Chernobyl (TORCH) http://www.chernobylreport.org/?p=summary
The novel’s timeframe is 2005. Estimated # deaths from Chernobyl, 2005 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/estimated-number-of-deaths-from-the-chernobyl-nuclear-disaster
This site also contains comparisons between the Chernobyl and Fukashima nuclear accidents.
This spring, on the 35th anniversary of the explosion (April 26, 2021), the culmination of an eight year study examining whether genetic mutations resulting from radiation exposure are able to be passed on to offspring was published.
