Svetlana Alexievich has done a heroic job of compiling what are essentially oral histories of Russians who witnessed the end of the Soviet Union. These are people from all walks of life many of whom also lived through WWII and various political loosening and tightening, depending on what group had control of the levers of power. You cannot help but marvel at Russians’ ability to embrace contradictions and to want to love their country in spite of the brutality and corruption and deprivation they have suffered at the hands of their own government and other Russians. Dr. Margarita Pogrebitskaya puts it this way: “You have to ask how these things coexisted: our happiness and the fact that they came for some people at night and took them away… Some people disappeared, while others cried behind the door. For some reason, I don’t remember any of that” (99). This book doesn’t attempt to make sense of any of that and it’s polyphonic style can be confusing for someone not well versed in Russian history. But maybe confusion is the point.