Eighteen

Whilst visiting their holiday home in the country, a family discovers a digital camera in their grandfather's overcoat. Its presence in his pocket is mysterious - almost as strange as the images on the camera: pictures he couldn't possibly have taken, from impossible angles, all of which contain blurry suggestions of a humanoid shape. Nearly a century before, amidst the chaos of the Russian Revolution, a Latvian soldier deserts his post and travels by foot, recording his many strange experiences in a small journal that he keeps hidden in his boot. His encounters lead him to develop theories on space, time, freedom, and what it means to be human. He wonders, what if time is layered, like a stack of pancakes? What if a tree, with roots and branches that grow expansively in every direction, enjoys an ideal, perfectly balanced sort of freedom? The backdrop of this novel is a pivotal moment in Latvian history, however its scope is much broader. Bankovskis's story explores the ways civilization's many products alienate us from the natural world and from ourselves, but yet simultaneously drive us back into nature's embrace.