Anatolia Sevoyants, fifty-eight years old, lived in Maran, an isolated Armenian village. Convinced she had a fatal illness, she pulled her "grave clothes out of the wardrobe,...opens windows so her soul...could free itself and dart heaven bound...". However, she easily fell asleep then "soaked up the morning sun with her whole being".

Life in Maran had not been easy for Anatolia. She was married for eighteen unhappy years to a man who was callous and indifferent. Reading was her only outlet. Having become the village librarian, she decorated the library by adding colorful curtains and bench cushions creating a "coziness and lightness...reminiscent of a reading room in a well-tended conservatory".

Maran used to be a farming community containing arguably five hundred households. On Saturdays, villagers gathered to barter their products. "You might receive a knife for ten hen's eggs...". Gypsy caravans traveled up the perilously narrow slope of the Manish-kar mountains in order to trade. Plagued by earthquakes, war, famine and drought, many villagers chose to move down to the valley. "The village clung onto Manish-kar's shoulder like a burdensome weight, pointless and forgotten by everyone", that is, except for the older citizens who didn't want to leave the land settled by their ancestors. "Every Maranian knew the ins and outs of their fellow villagers...their misfortunes, hurts, illnesses, and rare, but very long-awaited joys...Anatolia couldn't figure out why ...Vasily...[wanted]...to ruin that measured way of life...".

"Three Apples Fell from the Sky" by Narine Abgaryan is a literary novel describing the trials and tribulations of a dwindling population in a remote Armenian village. The villagers were congenial, sympathetic, cantankerous and loved to gossip. Their insular world was connected to the world at large via an ancient telegraph wire. Maran's residents engage the reader by sharing their memories, feats of resilience, bouts of stubbornness and love of humor. An excellent tome I highly recommend.

Thank you Oneworld Publications and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Three Apples Fell from the Sky".

I really liked how this story was told, it had just the right mix of sad and sweet, beauty and ugliness, mundane and fantastical, to make the village come alive in vivid detail. It was cozy and charming to be escorted into this world and spend time with its characters.

Three Apples Fell From the Sky is a book in which the setting ultimately feels like the central character of the story. The descriptions of Maran, an isolated and aging village in the mountains of Armenia, are vivid and one of the book’s greatest strengths. While there are obvious effects of conflicts and world events in Maran, Abgaryan makes them feel very remote. There is an insularity to this book that I found unusual and that I really enjoyed. I kept expecting turns into politics and history, but Abgaryan consistently prioritized characters and place.

One thing I found somewhat challenging about the writing was that organization. For example, a section that focused on one character would switch into a long remembrance about another without much indication that there was a sidetrack that was about to occur. I found there were a lot of characters and it wasn’t always easy to connect back to names of previously minor characters when they became the focus later in the book. This isn’t to say that the book was confusing, but it demands some attention and I had to do some rereading to sort out some of the relationships. The organization seemed more to me like vignettes of people and events in Maran, though there is some structure in the returning to Anatolia.

Three Apples Fell From the Sky is a bittersweet book that feels a visit to Maran visiting its elderly residents and hearing their stories about the village.

And three apples fell from heaven:
One for the storyteller,
One for the listener,
And one for the eavesdropper.

This old Armenian saying provides the structure for this mostly quiet, gentle story of family, friendship, tradition, endings and beginnings. Originally published in the Russian language in 2015, it has now been flawlessly translated into English by Lisa C Hayden.

Anatolia is one of the youngest residents of Maran, a remote, isolated village on the slopes of the Armenian mountain, Manish-kar. In her late 50s, she has outlived her immediate family by decades - even her abusive husband has been gone for more than 20 years - and in poor health, she is ready to die. But fate, and another villager, have different plans for her, and day after day Anatolia awakes to find she is still amongst the living. Her elderly neighbours, who remember her parents fondly, are a great support to Anatolia, and encourage her to accept the new direction her life seems to be taking.

In another part of the village, Vano and Valinka dote on their grandson Tigran, the only surviving infant born during the famine. He lost his own parents, so he developed a strong and close bond with his grandparents, who don't want to (but can't help) believing that the little boy's fate is somehow tied to the grumpy, snow-white peacock that came into their care at around the same time.

In the most surprising way, these two families are brought onto the same path to provide some hope for the village's future.

This book is really special. It reads like a fairy-tale with little sprinklings of magical realism to keep the story moving forward. I loved the pace of the story, which matched exactly the pace of village life, where everything is done by hand and life is lived largely at the mercy of nature. There are a lot of characters to keep track of - both living and dead - and I just adored them all. I have no doubt that I will re-read it at some point (and perhaps create my own little mudmaps so I know which ancestors belong to which current villagers).