What a treat to read something as fresh and nicely eccentric as this. A book that’s full of stories, without being a book about stories, if that makes any sense.
Two Cousins of Azov or You can’t pickle love (it has a subtitle) ostensibly tells the story of Gor and Tolya, the two cousins of the title, both in the autumn of their days. Gor is trying to make himself better known as a magician and is busy training up a new assistant Sveta while dealing with a series of mysterious events. There’s a tapping. There’s a dead rabbit outside his door, and the egg he wanted to boil for tea has disappeared. Is he going mad or just getting old? Tolya, meanwhile, is in a hospital following a serious illness and being interviewed for a research project for a trainee doctor. Tolya insists on telling him stories of his childhood and harks way back into the past.
The book is structured to alternate the point of view and this makes it easier for the reader to pick out the symmetry in what’s going on. The tales told by Tolya are full of folk stories and charm, and there seems to be a significance to the events happening to Gor – will the two men find each other? Will they solve the mystery?
There is a wide cast of characters, all with little foibles and quirks, (you do have to concentrate to start with in order to get them all straight in your head) and there’s a lot of food mentioned. Of course as the book goes on, we find the characters are all connected and intertwined somehow, and we start to get to the bottom of the mysteries. The food however, is another matter. I do feel this should come with a selection of snacks available to eat while you read so you don’t spend your whole time feeling hungry, the way I did when I was reading.
The blurb on the back mentioned that if you were a fan of Rachel Joyce (which I am) you would like this. This seems correct – both authors look at exploring the lives of ordinary people where perhaps not much adventurous or exciting happens but what does happen has an impact and is worth telling.
In short, this is a charming novel with plenty of humour and fun. The two main characters are playful storytellers and I enjoyed spending time with them.
Two Cousins of Azov is published by Borough Press on 13 July 2017. Thanks to Borough Press for the review copy.
Susan E Barsby 