Category: General Fiction
Language: EnglishKeywords: Russia Ukraine War
Written by Maria Reva
Read by Max Meyers, Saskia Maarleveld, Maria Reva
Format: M4B
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged
Set in Ukraine, an eccentric scientist breeding rare snails crosses paths with sisters posing as members of the marriage industry to find their activist mother. As Russia invades, they embark on a wild journey with kidnapped bachelors and a last-of-its-kind snail. This darkly comic novel explores survival, love, and hope in times of encroaching darkness.
“Startling and ambitious”âNew York Times ⢠âVirtuosic.”âNPR, Fresh Air ⢠âBrilliant and heartstopping.”âLos Angeles Times
âAnimated by dark humor and cool fury.”âThe New Yorker ⢠âRemarkable.ââThe Washington Post
“This novel turns corners and tables. I love works that are smarter than I am, and this is one.ââPercival Everett, author of Pulitzer Prize winner James
Ukraine, 2022. Yeva is a loner and a maverick scientist who lives out of her mobile lab. She scours the countryâs forests and valleys, trying and failing to breed rare snails, while her relatives urge her to settle down and finally start a family of her own. What they donât know: Yeva already dates plenty of menânot for love, but to fund her workâentertaining Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing theyâll find docile brides untainted by feminism and modernity.
Nastia and her sister, Solomiya, are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, posing as a hopeful bride and her translator while secretly searching for their missing mother, who vanished after years of fierce activism against the romance tours.
Together they embark across hundreds of miles: three angry women, a truckful of kidnapped bachelors, and Lefty, a last-of-his-kind snail with one final shot at perpetuating his species. But their plans come to a screeching halt when Russia invades. In a stunningly ambitious and achingly raw metafictional spiral, Endling brilliantly balances horror and comedy, drawing on Revaâs own experiences as a Ukrainian expat tracking her familyâs delicate dance of survival behind enemy lines. As fiction and reality collide on the page, Reva probes the hard truths of war: What stories must we tell ourselves to survive? To carry on with the routines of life under military occupation? And for those of us watching from over-seas: Can our sense of normalcy and security ever be restored, or have they always been a fragile illusion?
Endling is a tour de force from an author who weaves a story of love, loss, humor, and devastation that only she can tell.
Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
Release date: 06-03-25
Set in Ukraine, an eccentric scientist breeding rare snails crosses paths with sisters posing as members of the marriage industry to find their activist mother. As Russia invades, they embark on a wild journey with kidnapped bachelors and a last-of-its-kind snail. This darkly comic novel explores survival, love, and hope in times of encroaching darkness.
“Startling and ambitious”âNew York Times ⢠âVirtuosic.”âNPR, Fresh Air ⢠âBrilliant and heartstopping.”âLos Angeles Times
âAnimated by dark humor and cool fury.”âThe New Yorker ⢠âRemarkable.ââThe Washington Post
“This novel turns corners and tables. I love works that are smarter than I am, and this is one.ââPercival Everett, author of Pulitzer Prize winner James
Ukraine, 2022. Yeva is a loner and a maverick scientist who lives out of her mobile lab. She scours the countryâs forests and valleys, trying and failing to breed rare snails, while her relatives urge her to settle down and finally start a family of her own. What they donât know: Yeva already dates plenty of menânot for love, but to fund her workâentertaining Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing theyâll find docile brides untainted by feminism and modernity.
Nastia and her sister, Solomiya, are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, posing as a hopeful bride and her translator while secretly searching for their missing mother, who vanished after years of fierce activism against the romance tours.
Together they embark across hundreds of miles: three angry women, a truckful of kidnapped bachelors, and Lefty, a last-of-his-kind snail with one final shot at perpetuating his species. But their plans come to a screeching halt when Russia invades. In a stunningly ambitious and achingly raw metafictional spiral, Endling brilliantly balances horror and comedy, drawing on Revaâs own experiences as a Ukrainian expat tracking her familyâs delicate dance of survival behind enemy lines. As fiction and reality collide on the page, Reva probes the hard truths of war: What stories must we tell ourselves to survive? To carry on with the routines of life under military occupation? And for those of us watching from over-seas: Can our sense of normalcy and security ever be restored, or have they always been a fragile illusion?
Endling is a tour de force from an author who weaves a story of love, loss, humor, and devastation that only she can tell.
Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
Release date: 06-03-25