Review of Yelena Moskovich’s debut novel The Natashas.

“You enter a dark, deserted warehouse on the waterfront. One that smells of cats and kerosene, and whose walls are covered with dusty calendars from bygone eras. Or perhaps you find yourself in the balmy catacombs of an arterial sanctuary. Or, fill-in-the-blank, and create a setting that corresponds with your own resonant sense of dislocation, the flickering rose-light of omen and mystery. Simply, you are there, delegate to enigma, compelled to explore, to scratch an existential itch, which began with a crumb floating in a pool of cirrus: ‘In the boxshaped windowless room, all the girls are named Natasha.’ A simple description and declaration, what could be the textual fade-in to a Samuel Beckett cryptogram, and it is this cinematic ‘teaser’ which has drawn your inner-Philip Marlowe into a Maya Deren filmscape where a sign warns: The dream you are dreaming may not be your own. Welcome to the lucidly baffling world of Yelena Moskovich.”

Read the full review in Riot Material.