Addendum to a photo album

"Addendum to a Photo Album is the saga of the births, deaths, and disappearances within the eccentric Mandrykin family. Following patriarch Malach, a Cossack captain, his wife Annushka, and his many sons, all born with sideburns, it details their fraught relationships, particularly when sitting for the family photographs included in the album of the title. Vladislav Otroshenko's flowing sentences and rich metaphorical language describe characters whose concerns embrace the heroic, the metaphysical, and the mundane, as they fulfill their duties as Cossack warriors and family members. Otroshenko draws on his upbringing in Novocherkassk, a city on the Don River, creating a world and a book inhabited with absurdity, filial love, and unusual facial hair."--Publisher's website.