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"It is not so uncommon for those near the end of their lives to run
their mind's hand over the contours of those lives."

HUNGER, Elise Blackwell's first novel, begins with this sentence,
elegant in its simple statement. And from there an anonymous
scientist, the narrator, endeavors on his personal recollection of
one of the most horrific periods in history.

The narrator lived through the "hunger winter" that began in 1941
in Leningrad. For 900 days, he witnessed the city fall around him
and the deaths of the city folk at the hands of Nazis. Following a
lifetime of exotic travel that took him to Mexico, Afghanistan and
other welcoming places in search of rare seed and plant specimens,
he now finds himself trapped with his colleagues protecting the
botanical institute they've worked so hard to build. A pact is made
--- the scientists will not eat their collections, no matter how
desperate for food they may become; they will preserve their store
for future generations, even if they perish in their attempts. Only
our narrator cannot truly accept this agreement. Directed by his
appetites, he watches his colleagues barter their bodies and their
few material possessions for scraps, for tree bark to make soup,
for a single potato. Ultimately they die, as he indulges in the
institute's seed supply behind their frail backs.

Among his colleagues is Alena, his wife, a woman of great
principle. He also watches her dwindle away to nothing, while he
feeds his appetite. He tries to rationalize his secret meals by
saying he must do anything to survive at any cost. But his
explanations are selfish; he is an indulgent man whose every choice
in life has been dictated by his wants, his desires. In recounting
his memories we learn that he collected women the way he collected
seeds --- for their variety, their beauty, even their danger ---
and with little regard for his wife, whom he says he adores. He
claims that with each affair, with each poor decision, regret was
always instant, but his regret is less for the guilt of what he did
and more for having "awakened the horrible hunger" again.

A brief book, Blackwell's writing is economical, replicating the
very deprivation her book depicts. Her prose is spare, short
passages and short memories. But to not remember might render the
power to finally do the narrator in: "I told myself that pain was
the price of life; its absence was the step into death."

In the end the narrator, like his long lost colleagues, saves seeds
too. In a jar he has "reproduced each mouthful of food I stole
during the winter of hunger … I wonder if such a meager
portion could have kept my Alena alive." Does he regret his choice,
or hers?

The shelves are full of excellent books, fiction and non-fiction,
about the travesties of World War II and the Holocaust. While the
setting of HUNGER is unique, it is an all-too-recognizably-human
story about the choice between one's own life and what one might
leave for the next generation (in this case, the institute's
collections). A true humanitarian would put the good of others
before the good of the self --- but not Blackwell's narrator. He
lacks redeeming qualities, and it is that lack that makes his
personal story such an original and oddly fascinating read.