I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for subscription boxes. I’m currently subscribed to two of them— and one of them, of course, is Chocolate and Book. This particular, UK-based box, doesn’t get a lot of spotlight. I have no idea why. Because it combines chocolate, a beverage (usually tea or hot chocolate) and a book from an array of genres. I currently have my subscription set to ‘Surprise’. So, I never know what I’m going to get. This month’s surprise selection was Christopher Wilson’s most recent novel in paperback, The Zoo.
The Zoo is one of the weirdest novels I’ve ever read.
It’s historical fiction with a historical twist. We follow 12-year-old boy Yuri Zipit, whose life includes unfortunate near-death experiences such as:
- Crawling through the bars of the tigers’ enclosure at the zoo. (He wasn’t hurt or anything.)
- Falling off a roof. (He promptly landed in a truck full of hay.)
- Getting hit by a Moscow milk truck. (That one left him with permanent brain damage.)
Yuri wants to be friends with everyone he meets, is constantly looking on the bright side, and finds himself an unwitting collector of people’s secrets. No matter how big or how small, people want to tell him their deepest, darkest truths. Truths about murder and extramarital affairs and overzealous husbands who won’t stop pawing at their thoroughly disgusted and disgruntled wives.
And Yuri just kind of smiles and nods and seals their secrets away in the vault that is his brain. He doesn’t wanna be rude about it, but like, jeez, these people need a good therapist. Given that this book is set during Stalin’s decline, those are hard to find.
Yuri lives a content life with his father, the resident zoo’s veterinarian.
One night, his father is summoned to deal with an unspecified mammal. He insists Yuri be brought along as his assistant, and they find themselves treating Joseph Stalin himself. At this point in his life, Stalin is a horribly ill, crotchety old man who “stinks like a goat.” When Yuri’s father concludes that Stalin is, in fact, dying, he is promptly dragged away for his insubordination.
However, Yuri stays behind and is christened Stalin’s official food taster. (After a lengthy conversation, during which Stalin spills some personal tea and then gets salty about it. Because I guess if you’re a dictator, you can be at fault but blame everyone else.)
What follows is a story that I can’t accurately describe without diving into spoilers.
The Zoo is horribly funny. You’ll be laughing. And then something awful will happen, and the laughter will die on your lips, the urge to giggle all but tamped out deep down in your gut. With The Zoo, Wilson spun multiple plates. The casual cruelty of the era, the oppressive fear inspired by Stalin’s regime, the awkward, clunky bits of life, and the unsuspecting— and often unsettling, in the context of the story— innocence of our protagonist’s perspective.
I wasn’t expecting to be so gripped by Christopher Wilson’s The Zoo. For a short novel (less than 300 pages), it took me a while to really get through because I wanted to savour it. I’ve never read anything quite like it, and was really impressed!
I decided to pair this often-grim, cheeky, funny, strange little book with a tasty dessert recipe. If you like Nutella and you like strawberries, have fun trying out nutella stuffed strawberries. There’s literally no connection between the food and this week’s read, I just thought they were delicious!
Ready to pick up your own copy of The Zoo? Shop our Amazon affiliate link here!
Comments are closed.