Stork Mountain: A Novel

by Miroslav Penkov

Overview

Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

Culture, religion, and ideology collide in the mountains of Bulgaria in this big hearted debut novel

In Stork Mountain, a young Bulgarian immigrant returns to the country of his birth in search of his grandfather, who suddenly and unexpectedly broke contact with the family three years earlier. The trail leads him to a village on the border with Turkey, a stone’s throw away from Greece, high up in the Strandja Mountains—-a place of pagan mysteries and black storks nesting in giant oaks; a place where men and women, possessed by Christian saints, dance barefoot across live coals in search of rebirth. Here in the mountains, he gets drawn by his grandfather into a maze of half-truths. And here, he falls in love with an unobtainable Muslim girl. The past will surrender its shameful secrets, as old ghosts come back to life and forgotten conflicts blaze anew.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250118103
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	03/14/2017
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	651,255
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Miroslav Penkov was born in 1982 in Bulgaria. He arrived in America in 2001 and completed a bachelor’s degree in psychology and an M.F.A. in creative writing at the University of Arkansas. He has won the Eudora Welty Prize in Fiction, and his story “Buying Lenin” was published in The Best American Short Stories 2008, edited by Salman Rushdie. He teaches creative writing at the University of North Texas, where he is a fiction editor for the American Literary Review. He is the author of East of the West and Stork Mountain.

Editorial Reviews

A page-turning adventure story and a nuanced meditation on the meaning of home. This is a fantastic book.”—Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans

“[A] sprawling, wildly ambitious novel . . . Thoughtful and thought-provoking, with a passionate faith in the redemptive powers of art.”—The Boston Globe

“An agile and assured debut . . . In each of these stylistically old-school yet freshly envisioned morality tales, Penkov burnishes brute circumstances to surprising beauty.”—Elle

“An intelligently mapped plot complements the skillful blend of familial relationships with religious commentary, and elements of the hamlets’ folklore and rituals lend an added mystery . . . . This is a historically rich study of borders: those imposed by cartography and those that are self-constructed.”—Financial Times (London)

"Penkov's stories combine toughness, vulnerability, and bravado . . . This is a sparkling collection."—Catherine Taylor, The Guardian

“A tremendous achievement from one of the best young international writers.”—Yiyun Li, author of Kinder Than Solitude and Gold Boy, Emerald Girl

From the Publisher

★ 12/21/2015
This first novel from Penkov (author of the story collection East of the West) is about a boy who leaves America for the desolate borderlands of Bulgaria in search of his grandfather. Looking for a way to pay his debts, he returns to the village of Klisura, on the Bulgarian side of the Turkish border, to find out why his grandfather fled the U.S. and his family, and to claim an inheritance he believes is his. The young man discovers a place where exiled Christians dance on fire in honor of their saints, where Muslims were converted and given new names by a cynical Communist regime, and where storks come each spring to bear their own young in giant walnut trees. The village is steeped in mysteries and vendettas. The boy absorbs the folklore and also begins to glean his grandfather’s tragic involvement in Klisura’s troubled past, “like stepping stones that lead you to yourself.” The boy falls in love with Elif, the daughter of the local imam with whom Grandpa has a long-standing feud, meeting her in secret in a stork’s nest in the trees. He plots to save Elif from her abusive father, and to rescue Elif’s little sister, who is sick with a fever believed to be induced by the nestinari, the Christians who dance on fire. That the boy ends up finding himself within his grandfather’s story, among the gnarled and mystical roots growing out of ancient Christianity, Islam, and communism, is the great reward of this searing, heartfelt novel. This book is rich, enmeshing the personal with the political and historical, told in strange and vertiginous language that seems fitting for a tale of such passion. Agent: Nicole Aragi, Aragi Inc. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

01/01/2016
In this mashup of myth, folk tales, and a modern love story, a Bulgarian American college student arrives in the Strandja mountain village of Klisura, hoping to reconnect with his estranged grandfather and maybe cadge enough money to pay off his student loans. Instead, he becomes immersed in the lives of the Christian and Muslim townspeople who live uneasily side by side, sharing a history that dates to Attila the Hun. From Elief, the delightfully rebellious daughter of the local imam, the young American discovers the secrets of the spring stork migration and the centuries-old ritual of the fire dancers. In the evening, after imbibing a local liquor, grandpa unspools his own stories of politics, magic, love, and loss. But when the forbidden attraction between the two young people turns to talk of marriage, grandpa fears that his own sorrowful history may repeat itself. VERDICT Penkov's story collection, East of the West, a finalist for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, concerns itself with borders, both physical and metaphorical, as does this debut novel. The author uses gentle humor to soften the vast differences among various factions in Klisura, grandpa and the imam, the Catholic Church and the educators, the ecologists and the builders, all while writing a love song to his native land. [See Prepub Alert, 10/5/15.]—Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

Library Journal