Needing something to represent Ukraine for Rose City Reader‘s European Reading Challenge I borrowed a copy of Victoria Belim’s 2023 memoir The Rooster House: My Ukrainian Family Story, along with a few other books during one of my weekly trips to the public library. Later I decided to make it an official alternate to my 20 Books of Summer reading challenge, knowing from experience I’m always unable to stick to my designated tower of reading material. After taking a brief hiatus halfway through the book I eventually finished it. If you asked me if I enjoyed The Rooster House I’d tell you the verdict is still out. Like many books I’ve read over the years there’s things about it I liked, things I didn’t like and things, well, were kinda meh.
Belim was born in Ukraine and as a child immigrated to the United States with her family. Years later after her and husband moved to Brussels she returned to Ukraine in 2014 hopes of reconnecting with relatives and reacquainting herself with the land of her birth. While there she encounters a nation struggling to define itself and assert its sovereignty after centuries of Russian domination, most recently under the Soviets.
Called part memoir, part detective story by Blake Morrison in The Guardian The Rooster House succeeds when providing the reader an intimate look at a fractured yet hopeful land. Through Belim’s eyes we see a Ukraine that through fits and starts seeks to transform itself into a Western-style nation by reforming its broken and oppressive institutions, and above all leaving Russia’s orbit wishes to join the West, specifically the democratic nations of Europe. Part of this process involves uncovering the painful truth surrounding the horrors inflicted upon the nation by both the Russian-led Soviets and their local Ukrainian collaborators. No greater example would be when Belim, like Orpheus descends into the underworld of Ukraine’s Kafkaesque internal security forces in search of answers as to why her great uncle vanished in the 1930s. Long assumed to have been murdered by agents of the USSR’s secret police he’s been officially missing for almost a century without even a grave site for the bereaved to mourn.
Unfortunately, The Rooster House fails to succeed when it’s unable to craft together a coherent, unifying narrative. Some parts of Belim’s memoir held my interest but the tales of family drama, village gossip, gardening lore and day to day rural life didn’t, leaving me wondering if such material was merely filler. Not sure if I liked The Rooster House, but I know I didn’t hate it. And that’s never a bad thing.
