The Best and the Worst

It is beautiful because of the love among the main characters – lovers, spouses, parents, children.  It is devasting because the setting is the revolution at Euromaiden, Ukraine, in 2014, where over one hundred people were killed.

The book intertwines the stories of four main characters who are brought together at the demonstration at Kyiv. There is Misha, the mining engineer who lost his wife and father to radiation poisoning; Katya, the volunteer doctor whose young child died from heart failure; Slava, the political activist whose mother sold her into prostitution, and finally Alexandre, the musician who spied for the KGB.

It is the warmth and resilience of these people who have survived Chernobyl, the police state, corruption, betrayal, and prison that makes this such a compelling read.  Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, that celebration of the regenerative life force, is an apt image for our characters who can continue to love and cherish.

The book isn’t easy.  Time is not chronological. The cast of characters gets confusing and keeping track of their (possible) relationships takes effort. I finally started a chart. The names are Russian, meaning there are two names for some. The book’s structure is varied.  There are folk tales and songs, lists, newspaper articles, first person intimate story telling. Luckily, the chapters are short – sometimes just a few paragraphs that capture the essence and move the story along. The prose is spare. The disordered structure reflects the chaos of war.

This novel is a must read for anyone who thinks government by an autocratic strongman might be a good thing.

The truth of international questions doesn’t just float onto the page but is ferreted out by international news correspondents. In Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life, Nicholas Kristof, journalist for The New York Times, tells his story.

This memoir gives an idea of the bribing, manipulating, scheming, lying, trickery and courage needed to get information out of the reluctant.  International news correspondent is not a desk job; it is in the field – with pit toilets filled with bats, spitting cobras, flooded roads, suspicious armed militia, and murderous warlords.

As his interest matured, Kristof began to write more about social issues: global, such as child prostitution and forced marriage; local, such as homelessness and drug addiction. There’s philosophizing about how much good a news story can actually do.

Although Kristof has written about and seen some of the worst of humanity, he counters with stories of heroic individuals and selfless charities.  There is an acknowledgement that so many news stories about terrible things give a skewed portrait of the world.  Actually, we are told, medical care is the best it has ever been and illiteracy is disappearing.  The difference education makes is stressed again and again.

It was also interesting to read about his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist too, who was with him in China when they covered Tiananmen Square. Now that she is a mother of three, she has shifted to the less harrowing world of finance.

When one of the boarders is murdered in front of Ethel’s house, Jesse is startled to see his older cousin take charge, including personally calling the head of the Secret Service.  There is a lot that Jesse doesn’t know about Ethel.

Hs is a fast learner.  Soon the two are on the trail of possibly three rogue agents who are running a cryptocurrency fraud.  At the center is half a million dollars until they find an additional wallet containing two billion.

This is a well plotted mystery with two charming lead characters.  Perfect summer reading.  The bonus is that I learned a little more about how Bitcoin works.