Asya Demishkevich "Once a boy, twice a boy" Moscow: Alpina non-fiction, 2024

At the center of Asya Demishkevich's book is a terrifying story that will captivate anyone who once listened to horror stories at children's camp and now appreciates texts that embrace both the chthonic and the melancholy. The novel is based on the fairy tale genre, which helps the author organize her fiction into a coherent system with a mortal space, functional heroes, magical trials, and archetypes. Beginning as a family drama, the narrative quickly devolves into a kaleidoscope of symbols and strange micro-plots, behind which lie not only the pain of loss (the plot begins with a conflict between the teenage protagonist and his evil stepmother) but also a whole host of traumas experienced by a person living in the modern world, who realizes that nap time is over and there's no escape under any blanket.
“It was just the way it was, Andrey always lost something: keys, money, teeth, time, homework, his mother.”

