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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
The Dark Night of the Soul by Daniel Hryhorczuk revolves around Ukranian writer Lev Veles, who tours Venice during carnival time with American heiress Angela Rose, sharing discussions on faith, science, and society. Lev meets the Contessa, whose family has the darkest of histories, and Mara, who alters everything Lev ever knew about life or himself. Meanwhile, Lev's estranged daughter, Sophia, leads a patriotic concert in Russia while protesters rally against Putin, worrying about her boyfriend Alex in Ukraine. Lev experiences disturbing dreams, encounters a mysterious doctor, later discovers his role as a "shepherd of souls", and comes upon Valentina, a woman with a chilling secret. Sophia's journey to Kyiv leads her to Eric, an American doctor, as she searches for her child's father and the tie that binds all of these stories together.
The Dark Night of the Soul by Daniel Hryhorczuk is the perfect balance between philosophy, politics, and elements of horror, and that is an incredibly difficult bar for any author to clear. Hryhorczuk does it and makes it interesting, to boot. I definitely enjoyed spending time with Lev more than I did with Sophia, but both are given point-of-view narratives that are exceptionally deep, and I felt like I knew both of them. If there is one person from the whole story I'd like to have a face-to-face conversation with, it is Contessa, who is a character worthy of her own spin-off. The writing is great, and there were a couple of twists in there that I did not see coming at all. Lev's backstory is tragic, particularly as we learn about his mother. Overall, this is a thoughtful and intentionally slow-paced literary novel that is likely to have a broad appeal to non-conformist readers who are tickled by philosophy and culture.
