The People's Act of Love

The People's Act of Love by James Meek is the sort of book that if you described it to me in any great detail before having read it, I might have returned it to the library unread.  So I guess I won't give you many details, because after having read it, I think it is an excellent book.  It is set in a remote town in Siberia, post WWI, and well into the Russian Revolution. The town is made up of a group of people belonging to a mystical Christian sect, a group of straggling Czech soldiers, a widowed mother, and into this mix comes a stranger fleeing from a prison camp. You have to pay attention to the beginning chapters.  What seems unimportant or even boring will make sense later in the book, and things end neatly tied up.  The story is like an onion--you keep peeling away the layers, and there is still more underneath.  I was looking at reviews and someone mentioned the word macabre in relation to the story, and that is pretty close to being the truth.  This is the sort of story that you would never in a million years possibly believe, but the way Meek tells it, and the fact that it is set during the time of war makes it entirely plausible.  While reading this I kept thinking that in the right hands this would make an excellent film.  It is very visual and fast moving--and very well done.