The Great Glass Sea
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Editors’ Choice, this epic tale of brotherly love set in a dystopian alternate reality is filled with the magic of Russian folklore.
After their father’s death, twin brothers Yarik and Dima grew up together on their uncle’s farm, spending their days helping fishermen and their nights spellbound by their uncle’s stories. Years later, the two men labor at the Oranzheria, a sprawling glass greenhouse and a capitalist experiment that keeps the surrounding townspeople in perpetual daylight.
Work is now all the twins have in common. Stalwart Yarik is married with children, and oppressed by the burden of responsibility and the pressures of work, while dreamer Dima lives with his mother—and rooster—and spends his time planning the brothers’ return to their uncle’s land.
Then one day a bizarre encounter with the Oranzheria’s ruthless owner changes everything. Soon they find themselves at the center of strange conspiracies, disasters, and deceptions that threaten all they know.
Winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Library of Virginia Literary Award for Fiction, and the GrubStreet National Book Prize.
A featured Los Angels Times “Summer Book,” a Bustle “Best Book for July,” and one of Flavorwire’s “10 Must Read Books for July.”
“A genuinely fascinating novel—for its inventiveness, its passionate breadth and vision.” —Richard Ford
“Among the most gifted writers of his generation.” —Colum McCann
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Twin brothers find themselves on opposite sides of an ideological divide in this ambitious debut novel from the author of the novella collection The New Valley. Yarik and Dima grew up together in Russia, thick as thieves. As adults, they work at the Oranzheria, a massive greenhouse in the town of Petroplavilsk, which is bathed in perpetual daylight by space mirrors. Under the mirrors, the town becomes ceaselessly productive, a place where "sleep was freed from nature's hours, breakfast was what happened before work," and "stores never closed." Longing for more time with his brother, Dima becomes increasingly disenchanted with this new, overly productive society, while an encounter between Yarik and Russian billionaire Boris Bazarov the oligarch behind the Oranzheria leads to the Yarik's ascension through the ranks. A well-timed dystopian tale, the novel beautifully details both the politics of this hypothetical Russia "oligarchs bred beneath the clamp of communism let loose upon loot-fueled dreams" and its impact on one small family.
