Julia Phillips is a Fulbright Fellow whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Moscow Times, and The Paris Review. She lives in Brooklyn.
“A superb debut—brilliant. Daring, nearly flawless. A crime
jump-starts Disappearing Earth; the novel exposes the ways in which
the women of Kamchatka are fragmented not only by [a] kidnapping,
but by place [and] identity . . . Phillips describes the region
with a cartographer’s precision and an ethnographer’s clarity,
drawing an emblematic cast . . . There will be those eager to
designate Disappearing Earth a thriller by focusing on the whodunit
rather than what the tragedy reveals about the women in and around
it. Phillips’ deep examination of loss and longing is a testament
to the novel’s power.” —Ivy Pochoda, The New York Times Book
Review
“Engrossing: an auspicious debut novel, a literary whodunit
set in a distinctly foreign land. Phillips immerses readers in
Kamchatka—it’s in the rich, humane characterizations; the plot’s
gentle surprises; the reminders of the past; the rendering of the
landscape. Rarely has a novel so fully brought to life a place
most couldn’t pretend to know. Phillips plots with methodical
flair; the depth of her storytelling prowess reveals itself . . .
Disappearing Earth wades through darkness with
heart.” —David Canfield, Entertainment Weekly
“Stunning . . . Phillips lets her experience [in Kamchatka] shimmer
lightly in details [of] beautifully delineated scenes—situations
strange in their specificities and universal in their familiarity.
The mystery is worth reading until the very end.” —Bethanne
Patrick, NPR
“A couple of days ago, I felt like I needed to read a book that
would submerge me somewhere beautiful, severe, isolated, unknown to
me. Then this novel, Disappearing Earth, set in far eastern Russia,
in the world’s second largest city that’s inaccessible by land,
came like magic.” —Jia Tolentino, on Twitter
“An addictive page-turner about the search for two missing girls.
Phillips’s writing draws you in: Disappearing Earth is everything
you could want from a book and more—a fast-paced yet thoughtful
thriller full of human emotion and endurance." —Mehera Bonner,
Cosmopolitan
“Invigoratingly hard to classify . . . A dead or missing girl is
such a common device in crime fiction that its use now prompts
raised eyebrows. But Julia Phillips ingeniously dismantles
conventions. [Set] in a volcano-studded peninsula in Russia, this
novel builds a portrait of a place, as the disappearance of two
sisters shapes and is refracted through the lives of women. As
remote as this world is, readers will find it strangely
familiar. Phillips’s characters fight to steer a course
between the twin hazards of loss and captivity. Young mothers chafe
at the confinement of family responsibilities, craving risks their
older counterparts dread. For Phillips, the intricate web linking
her characters—bonds that can suffocate, sustain, or expose—is not
a mystery to be uncovered by a solitary detective. The ending
of Disappearing Earth ignites an immediate desire to
reread the chapters leading up to it . . . What appear to be
fragments, the remains of assorted personal disasters and the
detritus of a lost empire, is in truth capable of
unity.” —Laura Miller, The New Yorker
“Fascinating, immensely moving . . . The paradox of
Ms. Phillips' novel, set in one of the most remote and
mysterious places on the planet: its concerns are
instantly recognizable. The book opens with the abduction of
two young sisters. Succeeding chapters follow a diverse cast
in the year after the unsolved crime; their stories are about
the unraveling of bonds: a teenager is dropped by her best
friend; a woman learns that her husband has died in a mountain
accident; in the simplest and most shattering chapter, a woman
reaches the brink of despair when her dog runs away. You wonder if
the kidnapped girls are going to be forgotten, but Ms. Phillips
returns to their fate, tying together subtly dropped clues . .
. Engrossing.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
“Julia Phillips is at once a careful cartographer and gorgeous
storyteller. Written with passion and patience, this is the story
of a people and the land that shapes them. A mystery of two
missing girls burns at the center of this astonishing debut, and
the complexity of ethnicity, gender, hearth and kin illuminates
this question and many more.” —Tayari Jones, author of An
American Marriage
“A miracle of structure, premise, and content, this ingenious debut
spins out the narratives of twelve different women over a year to
explore the way the disappearance of two young white girls unearths
the suppressed racial tensions of a Russian peninsula. Reindeer
herders, ballerinas, avalanches, volcanoes . . . Phillips’s luring
writing will transform Kamchatka from a place you’ve never heard of
to a place you never want to leave.” —Courtney Maum, The
Rumpus
“An assured and engrossing debut that starts off as a thriller but
then turns into a deeper exploration of the lives of women, and the
way violence affects women’s lives, on the peninsula of Kamchatka.
You’re pulled right in from the opening chapter.” —Pamela
Paul, The New York Times: “Summer Reads, Recommended by Women of
The New York Times”
“Thrilling. . . this mystery takes you to a scrappy ice-bound town
in Russia’s frozen north. Rumors and rivalries, secrets and lies,
all add up to a compelling portrayal of a community under siege.”
—People Magazine
“Exceptional, satisfying . . . a sophisticated and powerful
literary thriller . . . a knock-out. By taking us through the year
after the sisters were kidnapped, character by character, slowly
spiraling back, Phillips is able to strike at so much of what ails
not only Russia but also most tradition-bound areas all over the
world today. The stitches of Phillips’s language make you
go, Damn, that’s good. And the ending can’t be described
without borrowing some of Phillips’s own language: it peels open
your chest and squeezes out the stuff we read fiction to
feel.” —Randy Rosenthal, The Los Angeles Review of
Books
“Unshakeable . . . Disappearing Earth has the makings of the
thriller when two sisters vanish without a trace [on] the isolated,
punishing Kamchatka peninsula . . . but Phillips does something
more sophisticated. All the women yearn for something more than
they have. Phillips is so skilled at conveying place and people,
you can feel the chill of the shadow cast by Soviet-style apartment
buildings, smell the blood soup, taste the burn of cheap vodka
drunk too fast to numb the pain. It’s so specific, and yet so
universal. These are stories of women the world
over.” —Barbara VanDenburgh, USA Today
“Mesmerizing . . . The mystery of two sisters’ disappearance
alternately ebbs and intensifies over the course of a year, [as]
each chapter dips into the life of a different girl or woman [on]
Kamchatka. The story reads as a page-turner without relying on any
cheap narrative tricks to propel it forward, and the strength of
Phillips’s writing—her careful attention to character and tone—will
grip you right up until the final heart-stopping
pages.” —Keziah Weir, Vanity Fair
“Phillips’s polyphonic debut novel takes on the challenge of a
setting almost impossibly remote, but still teeming with people and
their troubles. Two girls disappear near the shore of the Kamchatka
Peninsula (as far east as Russia goes), and Phillips proceeds to
track inhabitants in some way connected to the crime over a year,
weaving a net as taut and intricate as any thriller plot, but rich
in detail about relationships, historical scars, and the specific
and universal trials of being a woman.” —Boris Kachka,
Vulture
"A genuine masterpiece, but one that is easily consumed in a
feverish stay-up-all-night bout of reading pleasure. It's as much a
portrait of humanity as of a small Kamchatka community." —Gary
Shteyngart
“Absorbing and extraordinarily well crafted. . . Set in remote
Kamchatka, a landscape of volcanoes and vast tundra nine time zones
east of Moscow, it is a many-stranded crime story. It is also a
complex portrait of clashing cultures—both white and indigenous. In
month-by-month chapters that at first appear only delicately
linked, Phillips zooms in on lives that have been touched in
some way by the widely publicized, ineptly investigated abduction
of two little girls. Phillips draws intricately detailed
characters, and we quickly come to know them intimately. Yet her
primary interest is in social forces — especially those that
nurture dangerous men while devaluing girls and women who seem too
independent, too headstrong, too sexual. Ambiguity about the fates
of [the girls] allows room for both hope and dread, and Phillips
skillfully spins out that suspense.” —Laura Collins-Hughes,
The Boston Globe
“An unforgettable novel—beautifully written and tremendously
satisfying.” —Elena Nicolaou, Refinery29
“Pulsating . . . Phillips conjures the rugged landscape of Russia’s
Kamchatka Peninsula, excavating a collective trauma triggered by
the kidnapping of two sisters.” —O, The Oprah
Magazine
“Beautifully written . . . the chapters gradually expand our view
of Kamchatka, until both the complex characters and rugged
landscape come alive. Phillips’s writing is so assured as the novel
builds to a heart-stopping climax that you’ll find it hard to
believe this is her first book.” —Kathleen
Keenan, BookRiot “Best Books of 2019 So Far”
“Elegant, ingeniously interwoven. Phillips alights chapter by
chapter on various residents of a remote Russian peninsula . . . As
a series of character studies, it’s brilliant. But Phillips never
stops tracing Earth’s arc, tilting her tapestry toward a
singularly satisfying ending.” —Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment
Weekly
“Riveting, deeply rewarding . . . Disappearing
Earth spirits us along [with] each new set of characters
related to the missing girls or obsessed [with] what became of
them. Phillips’s writing is spare [and] canny; compelling; vivid .
. . beautifully written fiction.” —Chris
Hewitt, Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Accomplished and gripping . . . The volcano-spiked Kamchatka
Peninsula in Far East Russia, where the tundra still supports herds
of reindeer and the various Native groups who depend on them, is
the evocative setting of Phillips’ novel. In fresh and
unpredictable scenes depicting broken friendships and failed
marriages, strained family gatherings, and rehearsals of a Native
dance troupe, Phillips’ spellbinding prose is saturated with
sensuous nuance and emotional intensity, as she subtly
traces the shadows of Russia’s past and illuminates today’s
daunting complexities of gender and identity, expectations and
longing.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
“A stunning, powerful debut novel. Phillips’s characters
[have] deep humanity; her portrayal of Kamchatka is
superb. The novel’s many characters are introduced in the
preface, which calls to mind all those classic Russian novels with
sprawling casts. But at the same time, Disappearing Earth is
utterly contemporary. Has there ever been a novel, even by
Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, set in such a strange, ancient, beautiful
place, with its glaciers and volcanoes and endless cold? It’s a
place where miracles might happen: Phillips’s novel dares to
imagine the possibilities.” —Arlene McKanic, BookPage (starred
review: Top Pick)
“Cinematic. . . a knock-out novel that combines literary heft with
a propulsive plot. . . Phillips imagines a cold, desolate climate
inhabited by characters who exude warmth and strength. . .
Dazzlingly original.” —Sally Bissell, Library Journal [starred
review]
"I cannot speak too highly of Julia Phillips's thrilling,
impeccably written and splendidly imagined story, set with rigorous
attention to detail in one of the most volcanically dangerous and
beautifully remote corners of the planet. An exciting
beginning from an author whose literary future looks set to be
stellar.” —Simon Winchester
“Brilliant, spectacular—a wonderful book. Julia Phillips’s
exquisite, detailed writing drew me in from the very first page
of Disappearing Earth. I fell in love with each and every
poignantly rendered character, even as I couldn’t keep my eyes off
the central mystery of the two missing girls. The novel is both a
riveting page-turner and a gorgeous exploration of love, one that
circles around a magnetic core of loss. It has lodged itself deep
in my heart.” —Jean Kwok, author of Girl in
Translation
“Suspenseful, original and compelling, Disappearing
Earth is a strange and haunting voyage into a strange and
haunting world—the faraway Kamchatka in Russia's Far East, which is
brought by this debut novelist to eerie, vibrant and
unsettling life.” —Simon Sebag-Montefiore, author of The
Romanovs
“Julia Phillips’s novel is vividly real, but it reads at times like
a suspenseful fairy tale. Here are portraits of different women
with a shared yearning for autonomy, in a land inhospitable to it.
Here, too, is a story in which, against all odds, they do not give
up hope. Disappearing Earth is a brave, affecting
accomplishment.” —Christine Schutt, author of Pure
Hollywood
“Disappearing Earth is a rare achievement: haunting and
complex; intense yet subtle; sophisticated yet unputdownable;
moving yet never sentimental; foreign yet somehow
familiar. And it snaps shut at the end with dark poise. Julia
Phillips possesses a unique talent, and I can’t wait for her next
book.” —Lorraine Adams, author of Harbor
“This exquisite debut reads like a secret being whispered to your
ears only. Julia Phillips so smoothly evokes the quiet rage,
breathtaking tenderness and searing discomfort of a human
connection.” —Suki Kim, author of Without You, There is No
Us
“Julia Phillips writes in clean, sharp lines that belie an almost
frightening depth, and a clarity of eye that renders a complex and
gut-wrenching vision of the Kamchatka region and its people. More
than once, I gawped at this book: there are no seams, no
sentimentality, not a single untrue thought from start to finish.
With Disappearing Earth, Phillips accomplishes in her first
book what most writers can't glimpse in a lifetime.” —Bill
Cheng, author of Southern Cross the Dog
“Disappearing Earth is not only a viscerally wide-ranging
introduction to the land and culture of the Kamchatka Peninsula, as
well as a missing persons thriller—as beautifully written as it
was, I still couldn’t turn the pages fast enough—it’s also a
wrenching meditation on the agonies of those losses to which we
never fully adjust. This is a dazzlingly impressive first
novel.” —Jim Shepard, author of The Book of Aron
“A feat of literary suspense. I felt like a wide-eyed kid reading
Julia Phillips's Disappearing Earth. I could live in her
portrayal of this remote part of the world forever.” —Sloane
Crosley, author of I Was Told There’d Be Cake
“Truly impressive . . .transportive prose . . . A
must-read.” —Jamie Chornoby, BookBrowse
“An exceptional and suspenseful debut. In the opening chapter, two
sisters vanish from a beach on the Kamchatka Peninsula; their
disappearance sends ripples throughout the close-knit community.
Subsequent chapters chart the effect of longing and loss in a
series of interconnected, equally riveting stories. The climax [is]
truly nail-biting . . . Phillips’s exquisite descriptions of the
landscape are masterful throughout, as is her skill at crafting a
complex, genuinely addictive whodunit. This novel signals the
arrival of a mighty talent.” —Publishers Weekly (starred,
boxed review)
“[An] immersive, impressive, strikingly original debut. . . an
unusual, cleverly constructed thriller, and also a deep dive into
the culture of Russia’s remote Kamchatka
peninsula. Disappearing Earth opens with a chilling crime
. . . The rest of the book is about different women on the
peninsula, all with the shadow of the missing girls hanging over
them as a year goes by. You submerge ever more deeply into this
world, which is both so different from and so much like our own.
Will we ever get closure about the girls? You’ll want to start over
and read it again once you know.” —Kirkus (starred
review)
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