Endling

Maria Reva's first Novel Endling slices through time, acting very much in the 'now' but also in the 'recent past'. It's timeliness is mainly because of its conception: it is a novel by a Ukranian-born woman living in Canada, who began it before the Russian invasion expanded in 2022, and continued writing it through this invasion.

As a novel, it's a story about three protagonists: one is a scientist who studies snail extinctions in the face of climate collapse, and funds her work by moonlighting at an agency selling Ukranian brides to western men. The other two are sisters, both also working at that agency, and both the daughters of a feminist performance artist. They decide to kidnap some of the male clients to make this industry more visible to an international audience.

This plot suddenly takes a turn when the invasion starts and the area becomes a war zone. Reva does something clever and brave here: she changes to her own first person account and documents why she has had to change the plot of the novel, and why writing about her homeplace as it is under siege is harrowing. She travels to Kyiv and Kharkiv, but can't get through to her family home in Kherson, and then knits her own travel into the aforementioned story so it becomes novel, memoir, and autofiction all threaded together. She points out that just because there is a war, that this system of exploiting women hasn't gone away and still also deserves attention.

Handling so many difficult themes and voices could have made the book topple down, but Reva manages to tangle up war, climate, trade, women, and home effortlessly. The only minor shortcomings are in the descriptive and predictable quality of some of the characters and settings, but still this novel is artistic and poignant, and is a document that begs to be read.