From the International Booker Prize-winning translator and Women's Prize finalist, a novel about eight translators and their search for a world-renowned author who goes missing in a primeval Polish forest.
The intriguing premise of Jennifer Croft’s debut novel will prompt readers to wonder what kind of book this is. A fiendish whodunit? A riddling thriller about why the lady vanishes? A slice of psychological horror in which the assembled characters get nastily bumped off, one after the other? In fact, The Extinction of Irena Rey is something quite different. It is also, to a large extent, something quite brilliant. Croft subverts expectations with a blackly comic, fiercely inventive drama that explores the cult of celebrity and the art of translation (an art this critically acclaimed, award-winning translator has mastered) while spotlighting disparate individuals working together and falling apart ... However, as Croft thickens her plot, she also clutters her narrative, often impeding momentum ... But during Croft’s more streamlined sections, there is much to admire and enjoy ... a frequently dizzying display, which leaves the reader both disoriented and exhilarated.
Incredibly strange, savvy, sly and hard to classify. I also couldn’t put it down ... What I did not expect was that Croft’s debut would frolic so joyfully, so rigorously, in the absurd, the inane, and stay there from start to finish. Or that I’d end up frolicking with her. Reader, if you’re looking to get your heart thrashed, this may not be the novel for you. But if you’re up for a romp through a wilderness of ideas, innuendo and ecological intrigue (who knew there even was such a thing?), stay with me ... None of this craziness feels frivolous. On the contrary, the novel’s staked in anxieties about climate change, extinction and the unbalancing of nature thanks to art ... Mad with plot and language and gorgeous prose, and the result is a bacchanal, really, which is the opposite of extinction. Such is the irony of art.
Bizarre and brilliant ... The action is convoluted, engrossing and befuddling, a tramp through a thicket of clues and linguistic markers, set against a backdrop of bloody European history. Irena’s father—thought to have been killed in a duel—emerges alive, ancient and intact, with stories of the time he met Hermann Göring ... Croft’s great achievement is to marshal this mushrooming material with lightness and élan. For The Extinction of Irena Rey is above all tremendous fun.
