Title: The History of Soul 2065
Author: Barbara Krasnoff
Publication Date: June 11, 2019
Publisher: Mythic Delirium Books
Format: NetGalley eARC
Months before World War I breaks out, two young Jewish girls just on the edge of adolescence—one from a bustling Russian city, the other from a German estate—meet in an eerie, magical forest glade. They are immediately drawn to one another and swear an oath to meet again. Though war and an ocean will separate the two for the rest of their lives, the promise that they made to each other continues through the intertwined lives of their descendants.
This epic tale of the supernatural follows their families from the turn of the 20th Century through the terrors of the Holocaust and ultimately to the wonders of a future they never could have imagined. THE HISTORY OF SOUL 2065 encompasses accounts of sorcery, ghosts, time travel, virtual reality, alien contact, and elemental confrontations between good and evil. Understated and epic, cathartic and bittersweet, the twenty connected stories in Nebula Award finalist Barbara Krasnoff’s debut form a mosaic narrative even greater than its finely crafted parts.
This year, I’ve really been about reading books in new formats, and this is one that snatched my attention: a series of interconnected short stories that builds on a single premise.
I tend to read extremely linear books, so the fact that this didn’t actually have an overarching plot was something that I thought would be novel, even though I wasn’t sure how I would like it. The verdict: I loved it.
The first important fact: the 2065 in the title is not a year.
Reading comprehension skills are important, kids. Since I don’t possess these, I went in thinking it was “The History of Soul … 2065.” False. It’s all one thing. It’s “The History of Soul 2065.” That’s a very big distinction. And I’m glad, because what I thought was sort of lame, and the way the author took it was much more enjoyable and rewarding to read.
The History of Soul 2065 has a little bit of everything, from ghosts to witches to the afterlife to grief, and everything in between. There’s a pervasive eerie supernatural atmosphere in a lot of stories that was easy to get caught up in, and it always kept me guessing.
As with all short story collections, there were some I liked more than others. There were only a couple that I just didn’t care for at all, and with a collection this large, that’s pretty impressive, in my opinion.
❧ The family trees so kindly provided in the front of the book are not recommendations. Read them. They’re sort of required.
Don’t be like me. I’m the awful sort of person who skips superfluous content in the beginning of the book to get right to the story. I ended up having to go back to read the family trees in the front of the book, and when I did, everything fell into place. Imagine that, yeah?
The whole premise of the book is that these two little girls meet in a magical clearing, and while they promise to meet again, life has other plans in store for them, the way it does.
But their promise is fulfilled, little by little, through the actions of their family, and it goes down the line until the two families eventually meet again, several generations later. So it’s important to know these two trees if you’re really going to understand all the wonderful Easter eggs Krasnoff drops from one story to the next.
❧ I’m the super nerdy sort of reader who loves looking for Easter eggs in stories, and man did this book ever deliver on that.
I mean, it’s really a series of short stories, so I guess they had to be connected somehow, right? Sometimes it can feel random, jumping from one story to the next, but there’s always little details that ground it in previous stories.
Even though the story might be about one character, others are name dropped or brought in as secondary characters, and while we may not get to learn a whole lot about a character all at once, it builds up to a very clear picture of a host of endearing characters and how they effect each other’s lives.
I mean, it got to the point where I was ridiculously excited to find mentions of previously introduced characters or events, and it forced me to read that much closer.
❧ There is a little of everything in these stories—I laughed and cried and pondered life and death and fell in love with the characters over and over again.
There were just so dang many moments where the hairs on my arm raised because the writing hit just the right chord, whether it was a supernatural moment that caught me off-guard with its eeriness or just a situation that was so poignant and relatable that it gave me chills. Emotions are hard work, yo, and this had me all over the board.
The short stories start with two fathers haunted by their murdered children, and they run the gamut from an encounter with the God of Cancer, scientific experiments into genetic memory, grief, life, death, the Holocaust, and even into the future.
It wasn’t all negative and heartache, but I felt like even the lighter moments hit me just right and really endeared me to the characters. The situations they go through are things many of us have experienced, with just a bit of supernatural sprinkled on top.
❧ The writing is just beautiful. It walks the line between eerie, thoughtful, emotional, and just easy reading.
Once I started a story, I wanted to finish it (with few exceptions). The way they unfold, it always felt like there was a little twist or something to be discovered along the way, which made even the more mundane stories exciting, because I knew there’d be a payoff in the end and there almost always was.
The thing I was probably most impressed about with the writing was just how creative it was, with so many large concepts tackled succinctly and subtly, while still with an appropriate depth to do them justice.
There were several times where I was so sure I’d figured out where the story was heading, and I was always pleasantly surprised with a new twist or turn or outcome. I’m not a fan of predictable stories, and this one definitely kept me guessing.
❧ There is no one overarching plot that carries this book, so if that’s what you’re in it for, choose something else. This is very much a character-driven story.
Each short story can stand on its own, but when they’re taken in tandem with all the others, it really brings a new life to each piece. The backdrop of all the other stories in the collection makes each new story mean just that little more, precisely because of all the Easter eggs and little ways that the stories are connected. So while the collection felt cohesive, there’s no real plot threading between all the stories.
❧ As I said, there were some short stories that were complete misses for me (which is to be expected from a collection). I felt like they went a bit too far from believability, considering the magical realism setting in the rest of the stories.
I loved the magical realism and the fantasy elements that were slightly outside of ordinary life: the women who made things happen almost magically, the haunting of spirits, the afterlife, magical items, etc. These elements were obviously fantasy, but the way they were broached was like a hint at the unknown, rather than so in-your-face about it.
The tone was a little bit different, though, with a story where someone uses magic to body swap, or one that involved aliens, or similar stories. This really comes down to personal preference, but I prefer the subtle supernatural elements, the things that make you consider if something like that could really happen, rather than the more out there fantasy elements.
❧ The friendship of the two girls in the beginning, Chana and Sophia, is overstated. They only meet once and promise to return and meet again, but that’s about it.
Yet, during the story, the big focus is on the “friendship” of these girls, which feels like a bit of a stretch. There may have been an immediate connection, a sort of kinship, but I don’t think meeting someone for an hour or less constitutes as a friendship. Since this is the big founding premise of the stories, it was a bit disappointing. I would’ve liked to see them meet more than once in their secret glade and actually have a running friendship going before they find they can no longer return due to life.
This sounds really interesting. I haven’t tried a book like this. I’m curious now if I would like it.
I highly recommend giving it a go! 🙂 I really like that the stories were smaller chunks, so it was really easy to pick up and fit in when you have just 10 minutes for reading, and you won’t lose the thread or where you’re at in the story.