Leo Vardiashvili's HARD BY A GREAT FOREST (Narr by Luke Thompson)

Combining elements of a classic fairy tale and a desperate defense strategy the author assures us has been an unfortunate necessity for his people for as long as their land has been settled, Leo Vardiashvili's first novel, Hard By a Great Forest is a devastating read, but one that is more than worth the emotional pain it induces.

The great forest of the title is both metaphorical -- the forest in which a witch awaits Hansel and Gretel and also in which Baba Yaga dwells in her famous chicken-legged hut -- and the all too real region of Ossetia. If you're like me, you'd only ever heard of Ossetia in 2008, when Russia and Georgia went to war over it, resulting in the creation of a partially recognized (by only five countries as of this writing) nation-state in an area that most everybody else still considers to be part of the nation of Georgia.

That war and an earlier civil war fought in Georgia not long after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 form the very intensely still-felt background informing everything the novel's characters do and feel in every moment, even before our protagonist arrives in Tblisi in search of missing family members. 

Saba Sulidze-Donauri (and really, I urge you to listen to this novel in audio book form if you can; the proper nouns are amazing. Luke Thompson is English but he must have had help from the author or someone) is the last member of his little family to return to Georgia, from which he, his father Irakli (see?) and his older brother Sando fled during the civil war in the 1990s. The mother of the family, Eka, was supposed to come with them, even though she had divorced Irakli some time ago, but was forced to stay behind. Saba and Sandro were just old enough to know something had gone wrong but not what, and spent the rest of their childhoods in their eventual new home of London asking Irakli (they almost never call him "Dad" or "Father"; Eka, too is only ever Eka) where Eka was and when would she be joining them.

Irakli, meanwhile, worked ridiculously long and hard hours at jobs in their new city, leaving his sons to all but raise themselves, trying to earn the money to get Eka out of Georgia but his plans for achieving this never succeed, usually through trusting the wrong people to help him make it happen; Eka has died without ever seeing any of them again long before the events of the novel begin.

As things get started, we learn that Irakli has, after a lifetime of trying and failing to make the trip, finally traveled to Georgia  -- and has disappeared. As, it seems, has Sandro, who followed Irakli sometime later, trying to pick up the trail, only to himself fall out of contact with Saba, who feels he has no choice but to follow his family into his homeland, confronting the mysteries of his family members' fates and a lot of painful memories. 

The Tblisi to which Saba returns is the evolving tourist destination of 2015, experiencing some unique growing pains in the aftermath of a famous flood that, among other things, destroyed the city's zoo and let loose a host of exotic animals, mostly to grim fates, but occasionally also to amusing and heartwarming scenes, like when a hippopotamus named Begi, whose dilemma is depicted in the novel, caused a traffic jam and was helped to safety by a group of caring citizens. A Bengal tiger named Artyom has another cameo in a tense and retroactively kind of funny scene in the old botanical gardens when Saba finds himself pursuing a clue there.

The humor in that scary scene is communicated to us by a taxi driver of sorts named Noldar, who spotted Saba looking bewildered in Tblisi's airport, chivvied him into hiring his cab (an old Volga that becomes itself almost a character) and then, for good measure, talks Saba into staying in his very informally rented out spare bedroom. Noldar and his wife, Keti, adopt Saba almost immediately, but it's not all smiles; they are refugees from Ossetia, who were separated from their little daughter when their home came under attack. Noldar holds out hope that the girl is still alive; Keti maintains otherwise, and has forced Noldar to buy a cemetery plot and erect a gravestone so they have something to visit on the anniversaries of their loss. The broken state of their family is still palpable as they team up to help Saba try to repair what's left of his.

Noldar is a gruff old bear of a man, loud, hard drinking and -- vitally necessary in a novel this tragic -- funny. His version of Saba's encounter with Artyom delights many, including the reader, who witnessed it happening a bit differently than how Noldar loves to tell it.

Saba gets answers, visits old haunts, is haunted by a host of ghosts from his past, is hunted by a sinister detective who seems weirdly fixated on Saba's "case" and is possibly even more interested in finding Irakli than Saba is, encounters other vaguely menacing figures hostile to his mission, and has some touching -- and gut-wrenching -- reunions. It's all told with skill, immediacy and emotional honesty; in other words, keep some tissues handy if books ever make you cry.

You may also find that you really want to visit Tblisi, which sounds like a fascinating city. Just, if you go, know that tragedy is everywhere and memories close to the surface, so be kind. 

Of course that's true everywhere, though, isn't it?