Jason Quinn Malott
In July of 1995, the news photographer Gray Banick disappeared into the Bosnian war zone and doing so took away pieces of the hearts of three people who loved him: Emil Todorović, his interpreter and friend; Jack MacKenzie, his mentor who taught Gray to hold his camera steady between himself and the worst that war presents; and Lian Zhao who didn't have the strength to love him as he wanted her to.
Now, almost five years later, they have gathered in Sarajevo to find out what happened to Gray, the man who had taught them all what love is.
Each driven character in this novel believes fully that there is a love strong enough to sustain them, even in the extreme of circumstances of war. But each time they have uncovered a glimpse of such a thing, they have failed tragically love itself.
Or, to see it another way, this is a novel about how love fails us every time-or almost every time.
The Evolution of Shadows
Praise
“Malott explores each character, opening their lives to expose the wounds the war has inflicted upon them. While the novel does include its share of wrenching battle scenes, its emotional center comes from more nuanced themes: [...] This could easily have been a clichéd war diary, but Malott avoids the pitfalls of sentimentality, providing a refreshingly clear-eyed evocation of friendship, love and loss.” - Publishers Weekly
“[The Evolution of Shadows] is a passionate, wrenching tale of love and war whose tone and subject matter offer an update to Hemingway.” - Library Journal
“Malott’s novel is a sparely written and stark depiction of three people and a nation confronting the horrors of war. [...] The causes and consequences of a centuries-old conflict [...] are revealed through deft storytelling and main characters that transcend their ethnicities to become real people in all their complexity.” - Lyn Miller-Lachmann, Waging Peace blog, timesunion.com
“Malott strips down the language and amps up the tension as he creates an indelible portrait of the shell shocked and dispossessed.” - Booklist
“Jason Quinn Malott's debut, The Evolution of Shadows, is a devastating, often dizzying novel of returns and turnarounds. [...] a meditation on both the horrors of falling apart, and the arduousness of remaining in one piece.” Abilgail Deutsch on Bookforum.com
Further Reading
Ed Vulliamy's Seasons in Hell: Understanding Bosnia's War
Dzevad Karahasan's Sarajevo: Exodus of a City
Naza Tanovic-Miller's Testimony of a Bosnian
Chuck Sudetic's Blood and Vengeance: One Family's Story of The War in Bosnia
Jan Willem Honig's Srebrenica: Record of a War Crime
Anthony Loyd's My War Gone By, I Miss It So.
Peter Maass’ Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War
David Rohde’s Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica, Europe’s Worst Massacre since World War II
Wojciech Tochman’s Like Eating a Stone: Surviving the Past in Bosnia
