Review: The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra

The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra

Blurb from Goodreads:

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena—dazzling, poignant, and lyrical interwoven stories about family, sacrifice, the legacy of war, and the redemptive power of art.

This stunning, exquisitely written collection introduces a cast of remarkable characters whose lives intersect in ways both life-affirming and heartbreaking. A 1930s Soviet censor painstakingly corrects offending photographs, deep underneath Leningrad, bewitched by the image of a disgraced prima ballerina. A chorus of women recount their stories and those of their grandmothers, former gulag prisoners who settled their Siberian mining town. Two pairs of brothers share a fierce, protective love. Young men across the former USSR face violence at home and in the military. And great sacrifices are made in the name of an oil landscape unremarkable except for the almost incomprehensibly peaceful past it depicts. In stunning prose, with rich character portraits and a sense of history reverberating into the present, The Tsar of Love and Techno is a captivating work from one of our greatest new talents.

My Review:
I will admit that the first few chapters of this one took some effort to get into but once I got a better sense of the book, I was enthralled.  Such beautiful writing!!  The best way that I can describe this book is that it follows one particular painting, of a particular field in Chechnya, and it spans many decades to tell the story of this field, this painting, and the people that were impacted by both.  It is sometimes hard to see the forest through the trees in a book that is so masterful and so beautifully written through the use of seemingly divergent stories, and it took some time for all the threads and lives and stories to make sense, but it was done in such a gorgeous and unique way.  I had no sense of the history and the wars in the former USSR but this book left me reeling and thinking about the world I don't know.  The ending was perfect.  I definitely want to read more from this author!

I would have no hesitation in recommending this book to fans of beautifully written and captivating literary fiction, especially historical literary fiction.

The Tsar of Love and Techno came out last year, you can purchase HERE, and I highly recommend it!

You have waited for me past the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, past each of Saturn's rings.  It's ridiculous, so stupid, I know, to cross the entire solar system just to hear you and Galina butcher Tchaikovsky.  If ever there was an utterance of perfection, it is this.  If God has a voice, it is ours.  

The calcium in collarbones I have kissed.  The iron in the blood flushing those cheeks.  We imprint our intimacies upon atoms born from an explosion so great it still marks the emptiness of space.  A shimmer of photons bears the memory across the long dark amnesia.  We will be carried too, mysterious particles that we are.