Here is a story of a group of folks who are neighbors in a derelict apartment building in Russia. In this depressed part of the world, truth is considered too depressing, so it is changed. Life is not even decent enough for indoor plumbing, or even paychecks to happen despite hours of work. A museum of replicas, an odd juxtaposition of icons to deformed foetuses, plays a central part in this story, as several of the characters "work" there.

The characters are incredible! I loved how the author created these people who must live in their heads, and in their dreams because of the depravity of their real lives. When one of the characters dies from a leap from the roof, and comes back as a ghost we fall into the world of magical realism. What he brings is backstory, love from the harshest of places, and the truth.

The writing is wonderful. Her characters are full of instinct and survival. I loved these people who live in such a dark place, yet with a bit of magic and lots of character from them the story soars above their harrowing part in the world.

When I finished reading, I immediately picked it up to re-read again.

This book starts with a man stripped naked in a cell, wondering "how did it come to this?" Then the story starts, on the day the bomb is dropped in Nagasaki, with the story of how a German man, Konrad, and a Japanese woman, Hiroko, meet and become engaged. Their story then ripples outward into the future, to India, Pakistan, and ends in the post 911 America. The ever deepening connections and relationships between the two families, and the stories that are joined together, create an amazing intricate story of cultural differences both understood and misunderstood, the love that transcends the differences and even celebrates them, and the surprising ending that makes one wonder how do we pass on the knowledge of what we have come to understand.

This is a beautifully written book that gives great depth to the intricacies of relationships through time, place and the circumstances of history. It is a book that begs me to pick it up and reread it again.