Safe Return Doubtful

Saba and his older brother, Sandro, came to London as children with their father, Irakli, in 1992, as refugees from the civil war; their mother stayed behind in Georgia, where she died. Thirty years on, Irakli has returned to Georgia, and communicates to his son in England that he has gone to the mountains, and they should no longer expect to hear from him. Fearing for his mental health, initially Sandro flies to Georgia in search of him, sending an email to Saba that he has located his trail. But then he no longer communicates, so Saba, now an insurance salesman, heads to Georgia himself.

There is a compelling plot, which gains pace to become something of a thriller, but the real fascination with the novel is in Georgia’s recent history of being continually invaded, and its identity, as closer to Eastern Europe than Russia, represented by cynicism, a dry absurdist wit, and resilience to hold on to its character and culture.

As much as Saba is determined to find his father and brother, the past figures heavily, with a variety of dead relatives and friends offering him advice, as well as an eccentric Ossetian taxi driver, Nodar, who drives him around. Much of the humour, and some of the most memorable dialogue, come from Nodar.

They end up following clues as Hansel and Gretel did (from where the book’s title comes), which take them to Ushguli, a remote village in the Caucasus close to the border with Ossetia. The last part of the story takes place here, much to my satisfaction. I was due to visit these remote Georgian outposts in such magnificentally wild country just as the pandemic broke out. My intension is to visit in the campervan in the next few years, and this novel only reestablishes my enthusiasm.

My GoodReads score 4 / 5