“A subtle, heart-rending Estonian novel about a father in the last few months of his life trying to reconstruct the circumstances of his daughter’s suicide…the father and the narrator of this story, which has been translated from the Estonian in straightforward, engaging prose…seeks out other members of the commune as well as people who interacted with Anni before she went there…and no single perspective suffices to explain her life and death. We get different facets of her personality…”
“Raud (The Brother, 2016, etc.) treats his narrator and all of his interviewees with respect and allows them to tell their versions of Anni’s story. It turns out there are no easy—and ultimately no satisfying—answers to explain Anni’s transformation from a bright young schoolgirl to a member of what amounted to a religious cult.”
Read the full review of The Reconstruction at Kirkus.
