Endling, Maria Reva

I admittedly haven’t read most of the books that did make the Booker Shortlist, so I’m prepared to be corrected, but for now at least I think it’s a travesty that Endling didn’t make the cut. But I suspect I know why — I imagine that the postmodern meta flourishes make the book seem unserious to some readers. This is totally misguided — those aspects of the novel are actually perfect, brilliantly encapsulating both the surrealism of war and the anguish of trying to write about it. They ensure that the playfulness of the premise — snail conservationist moonlighting as mail-order bride — doesn’t eclipse the real emotional heft of the story. And they also offer a poignant account of diasporic identity, the feeling of being not-quite-native. I loved it.