In this gripping tale, a Russian conscript and a French woman cross
paths on the Trans-Siberian railroad, each fleeing to the east for their
own reasons
**Perfect for fans of Maggie Shipstead's Great Circle and The Lincoln
Highway by Amor Towles
**
Eastbound is both an adventure story and a duet of two vibrant inner
worlds.
In mysterious, winding sentences gorgeously translated by Jessica Moore,
De Kerangal gives us the story of two unlikely souls entwined in a quest
for freedom with a striking sense of tenderness, sharply contrasting the
brutality of the surrounding world.
Racing toward Vladivostok, we meet the young Aliocha, packed onto a
Trans-Siberian train with other Russian conscripts. Soon after boarding,
he decides to desert and over a midnight smoke in a dark corridor of the
train, he encounters an older French woman, Hélène, for whom he feels an
uncanny trust.
A complicity quickly grows between the two when he manages to urgently
ask--through a pantomime and basic Russian that Hélène must
decipher--for her help to hide him. They hurry from the filth of his
third-class carriage to Hélène's first-class sleeping car. Aliocha now a
hunted deserter and Hélène his accomplice with her own inner landscape
of recent memories to contend with.
