The Lady of the Mine

In the transfixing latest from Russian writer Lebedev (A Present Past), the ghosts of wars past are exhumed in 2014 eastern Ukraine. Kharkiv college student Zhanna returns to her hometown to care for her ailing mother, Marianna, a laundress endowed with an “enchanted” power whose nature is unknown to Zhanna. After Russian troops stealthily invade the region, Zhanna cannot return to her university. Meanwhile, villainous next-door neighbor Valet, who Marianna banished from the town after learning he’d robbed an abandoned mine shaft used by the Nazis as a mass grave during WWII, is back after spending six years in Moscow. Now serving as an undercover agent for the Russian police, he’s tasked with breaking up pro-Ukraine demonstrations. Lebedev alternates perspectives between Zhanna, Valet, a Russian general, and the ghost of the mine’s engineer, gradually revealing Marianna’s mystical purpose and the mine’s use as a mass grave in several wars, dating back to the 1905 socialist revolution. The narrative also juxtaposes stark and horrifying present-day images, such as bodies falling from a passenger plane shot down by Russian forces, with lyrical impressions from the engineer (“You have no idea how many spirits inhabit your netherworld”). It’s a bleak and electrifying tour de force. (Jan.)