Endling - by Maria Reva (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE - WINNER OF THE ATWOOD GIBSON WRITERS' TRUST FICTION PRIZE - LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE - FINALIST FOR THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARDS

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.

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: THE WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, NPR, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY, THE GUARDIAN, LIBRARY JOURNAL

"Startling and ambitious."--New York Times - "Virtuosic."--NPR, Fresh Air - "Brilliant and heart-stopping."--Los Angeles Times

Ukraine, 2022. Yeva is a loner and a maverick scientist who lives out of her mobile lab. She scours the country's 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 don't know: Yeva already dates plenty of men--not for love, but to fund her work--entertaining Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing they'll 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 Reva's own experiences as a Ukrainian expat tracking her family's 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.

Review Quotes

"Endling's brilliance lies in Reva's willingness to yank on the dangling thread of the unanswerable, unraveling the whole genre, only to masterfully stitch it back together again. Written in vivid, clear-eyed prose, at times both hilarious and devastating, Endling is an astonishment."
--2025 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize Jury

"Maria Reva is heartfelt and scalding in her tour de force. . . . An urgent tale of loss, camaraderie and holding on to even the smallest of hopes."
--BookPage (starred review)

"A thrilling ride."
--Financial Times

"Virtuosic...Starting out as a straightforward story about a Ukrainian biologist, this witty, shape-shifting book turns into something trickier and more interesting."
--NPR, Fresh Air

"An impressive high-wire act--one that blends the horror of the war with all the bleak and unintended absurdity it has produced in its wake."
--The Nation

"Undoubtedly one of the best books of the year."
--Minnesota Star Tribune

"A startling and ambitious whirlwind of a debut novel."
--New York Times

"[A] brilliantly bizarre novel . . . The smartest thing [you'll] read all year, but don't forget the tissues."
--Good Housekeeping

"Bold and blistering . . . A shape-shifting, snail-hugging, war-weary, fist-shaking blast of a book . . . It's a rare debut novelist who can combine a seemingly random set of topics and make them cohere. Maria Reva wraps together serious subjects like war and extinction into an entertaining and meaningful book."
--Christian Science Monitor

"Brilliant and heart-stopping...Maria Reva creates beautiful, purposeful chaos....Endling is a forceful mashup of storytelling modes that call attention to its interplay of reality and fiction -- a Ukrainian tragicomedy of errors colliding with social commentary about the Russian invasion."
--Los Angeles Times

"Remarkable....Reva tests the boundaries of storytelling with freshness and humor."
--The Washington Post

"This work on feminist outrage, environmental destruction, and the inhumanity of war is not didactic; instead, it is a page-turning, genre-bending meta-novel as entertaining as it is gut-wrenching, whose experiments with literary form will keep readers on their toes."
--Library Journal (starred review)

"Full of suspense and humor, while never letting go of what is really happening in the lives of Ukrainian people at home and abroad...A noteworthy literary achievement and also a good story, sure to be widely discussed and enjoyed."
--Kirkus (starred review)

"Astonishing... this inspired and urgent novel is bound to make a major splash."
--Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

"In Maria Reva's all-around brilliant novel Endling, the fate of some snails serves as a harbinger for the fate of Ukraine. The book is funny and smart, full of science, longing and adventure, all the while reminding us what the world stands to lose, and what it has already lost. This is essential reading."
--Ann Patchett, bestselling author of Tom Lake

"Maria Reva has gifted us a lifeline. Wild, exhilarating, heartbreaking--Endling is a tale of perseverance and survival for dark times.
--Anelise Chen, author of Clam Down: A Metamorphosis

"Ironic, sharp, and wise, this is a big (meta)fictional achievement."
--Karan Mahajan, author of National Book Award finalist Association of Small Bombs

"Maria Reva has made a fantastic novel. It's about so much and yet is laser focused. A scientist who funds her research with sex work, a wild and, at the same time, sensible and normal move. This novel turns corners and tables. I love works that are smarter than I am, and this is one."
--Percival Everett, author of National Book Award winner James

"Heartbreaking, hilarious, profound, and vital, Maria Reva's debut novel Endling is a brilliant, visceral journey that pulses with a powerful sense of urgency and relevance to our times."
--Lara Prescott, author of The Secrets We Kept

"Maria Reva's dazzling debut novel Endling will take you on a ride you will never forget. Into this brilliant stew of a novel the fearless Reva stirs Ukraine's "romance tour" industry, feminist activists, a kidnapping caper, the fine science of snail conservation, the eternal mysteries of family dynamics, and Europe's first major land war since World War II. Only a supremely talented writer could handle material like this, and Reva-who seems incapable of writing a dud sentence-shows she's more than up to the task. Open this book, fasten your seatbelt, and brace for impact."
--Ben Fountain, National Book Award finalist and author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

About the Author

MARIA REVA was born in Ukraine and grew up in Canada. Her fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, McSweeney's, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere, and has won a National Magazine Award. Endling is her debut novel and has been translated into nineteen languages. She also works as an opera librettist.