by Rawi Hage
First published 2019
Pavlov lives with his undertaker father on a damaged street overlooking a cemetery in Christian Beirut. The year is 1978, and Lebanon's civil war rages around them. When his father dies unexpectedly, a member of the secretive Hellfire Society approaches Pavlov with an offer. His father belonged to this clandestine group, which provides burial and cremation services for people rejected by family, religious authorities, and government. Pavlov accepts the role and begins tending to society's forgotten dead. As he carries out this work, he documents the slow collapse of his neighborhood and community. He watches old traditions persist even as everything familiar disappears around him. Through Pavlov's eyes, we see how people maintain dignity and purpose when war destroys the world they knew. The novel follows his transformation from undertaker's son to keeper of his community's final stories.
Genres: fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, transformation
Setting: Beirut, Christian Beirut, Lebanon
Period: 1978
288 pages · Paperback · Knopf Canada
Content warnings: death, war