Disappearing Earth

A novel

By: Julia Phillips

Narrated by: Ilyana Kadushin

Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

One of The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year

National Book Award Finalist
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award

National Best Seller

"Splendidly imagined... Thrilling" (Simon Winchester)
"A genuine masterpiece" (Gary Shteyngart)

Spellbinding, moving - evoking a fascinating region on the other side of the world - this suspenseful and haunting story announces the debut of a profoundly gifted writer.

One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two girls - sisters, eight and 11 - go missing. In the ensuing weeks, then months, the police investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across a tightly woven community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women.

Taking us through a year in Kamchatka, Disappearing Earth enters with astonishing emotional acuity the worlds of a cast of richly drawn characters, all connected by the crime: a witness, a neighbor, a detective, a mother. We are transported to vistas of rugged beauty - densely wooded forests, open expanses of tundra, soaring volcanoes, and the glassy seas that border Japan and Alaska - and into a region as complex as it is alluring, where social and ethnic tensions have long simmered, and where outsiders are often the first to be accused.

In a story as propulsive as it is emotionally engaging, and through a young writer's virtuosic feat of empathy and imagination, this powerful novel brings us to a new understanding of the intricate bonds of family and community, in a Russia unlike any we have seen before.

©2019 Julia Phillips (P)2019 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Mesmerizing.... The mystery of two sisters’ disappearance alternately ebbs and intensifies over the course of a year, [as] each chapter dips into the life of a different girl or woman [on] Kamchatka. The story reads as a page-turner without relying on any cheap narrative tricks to propel it forward, and the strength of Phillips’s writing - her careful attention to character and tone - will grip you right up until the final heart-stopping pages.” (Keziah Weir, Vanity Fair)

“Accomplished and gripping.... The volcano-spiked Kamchatka Peninsula in Far East Russia, where the tundra still supports herds of reindeer and the various Native groups who depend on them, is the evocative setting of Phillips’ novel. In fresh and unpredictable scenes depicting broken friendships and failed marriages, strained family gatherings, and rehearsals of a Native dance troupe, Phillips’ spellbinding prose is saturated with sensuous nuance and emotional intensity, as she subtly traces the shadows of Russia’s past and illuminates today’s daunting complexities of gender and identity, expectations and longing.” (Donna Seaman, Booklist, starred review)

“A superb debut - brilliant. Daring, nearly flawless. A crime jump-starts Disappearing Earth; the novel exposes the ways in which the women of Kamchatka are fragmented not only by [a] kidnapping, but by place [and] identity...Phillips describes the region with a cartographer’s precision and an ethnographer’s clarity, drawing an emblematic cast.... There will be those eager to designate Disappearing Earth a thriller by focusing on the whodunit rather than what the tragedy reveals about the women in and around it. Phillips’ deep examination of loss and longing is a testament to the novel’s power.” (Ivy Pochoda, The New York Times Book Review)

Unforgettable

Marvelous language; great story; mystery with unexpected twists; richly drawn characters; a spiritual journey; exciting and unexpected ending. Among the best books you will ever read by any author. And, the audio version narration is tops!

Why did I need to meet all of these characters?

I'm quoting a previous reviewer who couldn't have said it better.
"There are just way too many voices in this story. Each vignette is very well written. But it felt relentless, one after the other, having to meet new characters and get inside their heads, only to abandon most of them completely."
I liked some of the characters we meet early in the story, but by the end I wasn't sure why they were introduced at all. If there was a connection to them in the end, I missed it.

book? interesting. Audible? missed

this book review has more to do with audible. where the heck are the book notes at the end?
I realize once again after a book club meeting that audible does not provide the acknowledgement, or book notes, let alone discussion questions (in this book there may not have been any discussion questions)

summer read

More characters than I could audibly track, but a pleasant story. Our book group choice per NY Times review.

The anti-thriller that breaks your heart

There is so much to love about this novel. The structure, the prose, the heart. But it is the combination of everything that makes Disappearing Earth a special book. In the hands of a lesser writer, the structure of DE might feel wandering or disconnected, but not with Phillips. Phillips guides us around the rock of the disappearance of two girls as we discover just how far the waves of such an act can reach. Its a beautiful book, beautifully narrated. Cannot recommend enough.

Spell binding

A wonderfully narrated story filled with suspense and great life lessons about what to believe in. Only struggle was the Russian names but that was probably good for me

Long and wordy. Hard to stay with it.

Not my favorite. Good characterizations but story not strong enough. I can't recommend this book.

Gripping mystery set in remote Russia

This eminently readable first novel weaves together the remote terrain, weather and isolation of the Kamchatka peninsula and a mystery of two missing little sisters who disappeared one summer afternoon. A haunting sense of foreboding is ever-present in these interwoven stories of the townspeople and others affected by the girls’ disappearance. Hard to put this down.

Stands up the reviews

Very different setting , Russia I think , not sure of location but definitely Russian influence & names of characters like a Russian novel of old . You have to hang in through many developing chapters but it’s worth it once u hit the last chapter which is good as it gets in ‘ gone girl ‘ thrillers ! Still shaking at ending which I love that u have to interpret for yourself . What a movie !

Well written, but....

If you want to spend many hours feeling sad and anxious this is the book for you.