The Half Life of Valery K
Natasha Pulley
From the author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and The Kingdoms, an epic Cold War novel set in a mysterious town in Soviet Russia. In 1963, in a Siberian gulag, former nuclear specialist Valery Kolkhanov has mastered what it takes to survive: the right connections to the guards for access to food and cigarettes, the right pair of warm boots to avoid frostbite, and the right attitude toward the small pleasures of life so he won’t go insane. But on one ordinary day, all that changes: Valery’s university mentor steps in and sweeps Valery from the frozen prison camp to a mysterious unnamed town that houses a set of nuclear reactors and is surrounded by a forest so damaged it looks like the trees have rusted from within. In City 40, Valery is Dr. Kolkhanov once more, and he’s expected to serve out his prison term studying the effect of radiation on local animals. But as Valery begins his work, he is struck by the questions his research raises: why is there so much radiation in this area? What, exactly, is being hidden from the thousands who live in the town? And if he keeps looking for answers, will he live to serve out his sentence? Based on real events in a surreal Soviet city, and told with bestselling author Natasha Pulley’s inimitable style, The Half Life of Valery K is a sweeping new adventure for readers of Stuart Turton and Sarah Gailey.
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0 0Over the course of less than a year, I've gone from only vaguely being aware of Natasha Pulley's name to being a die-hard total fan. Fortunately, I didn't actually have to sell my firstborn child to read an early copy of The Half Life of Valery K - thank you Bloomsbury!
Also fortunate? I was absolutely not let down by Pulley's latest. Though this might be the first of her novels to stay firmly in a realist mode, without the hints of the magical and fantastical that pervade her other works, in most ways it follows what's clearly a pattern or template of sorts for Pulley.
Which in a way is great - after all, I adore her other books, and despite the inclusion of many of the same sort of tropes and archetypes, she still finds fresh and surprising approaches to them, not to mention heartbreakingly, shatteringly perfect prose throughout.
On the other hand... I'm getting just a little tired of the way female characters (especially the ruthless, ambitious sorts) are given short shrift for the sake of the male leads. Just... kind of starting to be noticeable, you know? And maybe a bit worn out? And maybe we can try something else next time?
There's also a big ol' spoiler choice made toward the end of the book that I found jarringly out of character - all to get people where they need to be for one kind of satisfactory ending. It's a bit...imperfect.
But Natasha Pulley at less than perfect is still pretty damn good - and still a five-star, highly recommended read.
**Content Warnings**
Miscarriage and pregnancy-related trauma, child illness, torture, implied rape, institutional homophobia, mass murder, individual murder too, human experimentation, animal death.
I received an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
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