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Titled The Unclean Force, the book takes its name from a term in Slavic paganism referring to mythological dark spirits and creatures, such as werewolves.
The first part, Wolf’s Son, tells the haunting tale of a young man imprisoned in a Russian gulag.
Avy dedicated this book to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), “who honoured his oath to the voiceless” and Alexei Remizov (1877–1957), “a born sorcerer, who has spoken in dreams in me”.
Brantley was deeply fascinated by Russian symbolists like Andrei Bely, and authored brilliant – until now unpublished – essays on Bely, Somov, and Remizov, which I plan to publish soon.
I am convinced The Unclean Force would have become Brantley’s magnum opus, if …!