Our April book club pick for Now Read This, the PBS NewsHour's book club with The New York Times, is Julia Phillips' "Disappearing Earth," a novel about a community's reckoning with the sudden disappearance of two young girls.
Set on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, a region where social and ethnic tensions have long shaped the lives of the residents there, Phillips' novel follows a cast of characters who are connected by the crime.
The mysterious disappearance of the Golosovsky sisters one summer day ignites an onslaught of media attention that lays bare the broader tensions, particularly for women who feel their struggles have not been given equal notice.
In a book review for The New York Times, writer Ivy Pochoda praised Phillips for bringing "a cartographer's precision and an ethnographer's clarity" to her descriptions of Kamchatka, as well as weaving together stories of women who are "are fragmented personally, culturally and emotionally not only by the crime that jump-starts the novel, but by place, identity and the people who try, and often fail, to understand them."
Phillips spent time in Kamchatka on a Fulbright scholarship in 2011, and studied the Russian language for years.
"Disappearing Earth" was named one of The New York Times' 10 Best Books of the Year and as a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.
Phillips will join us at the end of the month to answer your questions about "Disappearing Earth." We hope you'll read along.
Sustain our coverage of culture, arts and literature.
If you've ever wanted to own a piece of Hollywood history, now's your chance. A pair of Dorothy's ruby slippers…
When Centurion was founded, it was the first group of its kind working to overturn wrongful convictions for people facing…
As major American museums reexamine their collections to ensure diversity and inclusion, there's a growing realization that they need more…
As a dancer, choreographer, director and speaker, Jamison's distinguished career leaped over barriers of race and gender.
In the 1980s, about 70 percent of clothes sold in the U.S. were made in the country. Today, it's down…
This is her first time receiving nominations in the country and Americana categories.
For many Muslim and Arab Americans, Israel's wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and the wider Middle East are personal, and so…
A giant in the music and entertainment industry has died. Quincy Jones, known to many as 'Q,' was revered as…
Jones rose from music school dropout to the very heights of show business, becoming one of the first Black executives…
Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on "Saturday Night Live" in the final days before the presidential election, playing herself…
During the final days of this tense election, we take a look at a project fostering a different type of…
The 33-year-old Grammy winning artist, whose given name is Jeffery Williams, entered his pleas without reaching a deal with prosecutors…
With the election days away, there is no shortage of reflections on American politics and democracy. Photographer Paul Shambroom has…
The quirky comedy actor who rose from background dancer in Elvis Presley movies to favorites such as "Young Frankenstein" and…
