A whodunit about a missing novelist takes a bizarre, brilliant turn

A whodunit about a missing novelist takes a bizarre, brilliant turn

In September 2017, eight translators from far and wide arrive at an odd-shaped house in a remote Polish village on the edge of a primeval forest. This is the group’s seventh “translation summit” at the home of internationally renowned author Irena Rey. Once again, the translators will render her latest book into each of their languages. But before they can settle down and start work, their host disappears.

The intriguing premise of Jennifer Croft’s debut novel will prompt readers to wonder what kind of book this is. A fiendish whodunit? A riddling thriller about why the lady vanishes? A slice of psychological horror in which the assembled characters get nastily bumped off, one after the other? In fact, “The Extinction of Irena Rey” is something quite different. It is also, to a large extent, something quite brilliant. Croft subverts expectations with a blackly comic, fiercely inventive drama that explores the cult of celebrity and the art of translation (an art this critically acclaimed, award-winning translator has mastered) while spotlighting disparate individuals working together and falling apart.

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The book’s narrator is Emi from Argentina. She and her seven colleagues refer to one another by their respective languages. Alongside “Spanish” there are German, English, Serbian, Slovenian, Ukrainian, French and new recruit Swedish. All worship their dear leader — “Our Author” — Irena: “She was warmth, she was moisture, she was light, she was the adamant perfection of a million billion snowflakes in a split second’s descent.” They are therefore disconcerted to see that she is a shadow of her former self, not radiant and captivating, complete with aura and halo, but rather ghost-white and withdrawn. They also find she is incensed by a government measure to chop down the spruce trees in the neighboring Białowieża Forest.

When Irena goes missing, her acolytes air their suspicions: Has she been kidnapped by her husband, Bogdan, by Russians, by one of her trolls or obsessive fans? Aware that they are behind the curve (“as translators it was our lot in life to arrive after the fact”), the group starts combing the forest and trawling her new manuscript for clues. As they do so, they come out of Irena’s shadow and flout her rules, think for themselves, learn one another’s real identities and, in some cases, find romance.

Jennifer Croft.

Their investigations uncover hidden secrets about Irena, from dubious habits to illicit affairs to the shock revelation that the author might have been using her faithful followers for more than their translation skills. But as they get closer to the truth and reevaluate who Irena is, tensions flare, paranoia takes root, and rivalry between members of the group sours into deep-seated animosity. Soon it becomes clear that it isn’t just Irena’s life that might be in danger.

Croft won the 2018 International Booker Prize for her translation of Olga Tokarczuk’s “Flights.” While “The Extinction of Irena Rey” is markedly different from the Nobel laureate’s self-styled “constellation novel” with its patchwork of voices, stories and reflections, key elements of Croft’s book (madcap mystery, amateur sleuthing, off-the-beaten-track Polish setting) show that it comes from a similar mold as Tokarczuk’s 2009 work, “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.”

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But Croft has written a busier novel, one that is powered by rambunctious energy and packed with quirks and anomalies. There is jeopardy in the form of a venomous snake, a rogue archer, a strange ranger and, for Emi, a duel with fellow translator Alexis. There is an unexpected twist when a character presumed dead reappears, and a bizarre turn when Irena’s archnemesis Barbara Bonk darkens her door.

However, as Croft thickens her plot, she also clutters her narrative, often impeding momentum. We hear about, and try to make sense of, myths, hoofs, cryptic words and embroidered pouches. We take stock of the exotic and the esoteric: forest flora and fauna, the collection of museum artifacts and curios in Irena’s house, and the contents of the folders on her computer. When Emi talks of the “empty plenitude” of Irena’s home, she could be describing her creator’s surfeit of random detail on certain pages.

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But during Croft’s more streamlined sections, there is much to admire and enjoy. Her translators are a colorful bunch, particularly Serbian Petra, who swears Irena’s home is haunted, and Alexis from Arkansas, whose English translation of Emi’s book we are reading, and whose catty footnotes are a source of joy. Croft animates her characters while expertly skewering their fawning devotion toward the enchantress-author who has them in her employ and under her spell.

Best of all, though, are Croft’s insights into translation. Does Alexis have the right to “civilize” Irena’s text by making amendments? Do translations “adulterate” their originals? At one point, Emi declares how important translators are — “how we mattered, and how we dissolved, which came to the same, like the horizon at sea.” Elsewhere she notes ruefully that “Irena’s works were eternal, but our translations were no more enduring than socks.”

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Like her 2019 memoir, “Homesick,” Croft’s novel is interlarded with beguiling photos. They add to the display of creativity on show — a frequently dizzying display, which leaves the reader both disoriented and exhilarated.

Malcolm Forbes is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the Economist, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal and the New Republic.

The Extinction of Irena Rey

By Jennifer Croft

Bloomsbury. 320 pp. $28.99