Addendum to a Photo Album is the saga of the births, deaths, and
disappearances within the eccentric Mandrykin family. Following
patriarch Malach, a Cossack captain, his wife Annushka, and his many
sons all born with sideburns, the novel details their fraught
relationships, particularly when sitting for family photographs.
Vladislav Otroshenko's flowing sentences and rich metaphorical language
describe characters whose concerns embrace the heroic, the metaphysical,
and the mundane, as they fulfill their duties as Cossack warriors and
family members. Otroshenko draws on his upbringing in Novocherkassk, a
city on the Don River, creating a world and a book inhabited with
absurdity, filial love, and unusual facial hair.