It is a deadly car accident during the Christmas season in Poland that shatters a family man's life, and haunts the perpetrator, who walks away from the crime scene.
If only Richard Brennan had driven, his wife and daughter might still be alive, but he'd been drinking fairly steadily during their dinner date with his wife's relatives, and thought that having her drive was a better idea. However, the road was slick, and that nice BMW seemed to appear out of nowhere.
When Richard recovers, he returns to California to eek out a pretend life for a few years. He is a journalist by trade, and he still tentatively maintains his craft. It is a call from a police contact that alerts Richard to possibly the biggest story he's had in ages.
At this same time, he will have other kinds of challenges when his nephew from Poland, fresh from skimming money from his parents' bank account for drugs, comes to stay for the following school year, and also when Richard meets the new reporter in town, who has already stepped on a few toes.
The other main storyline concerns Bogdan Baranowski, who caused the accident. He's a failed businessman who was on his way back with his friend from a botched petty crime attempt. When Bogdan first checks the car they ran off the road, he perceives three dead bodies, panics, and then he and his accomplice flee the incident.
Bogdan's further life past this point spirals downward and keeps on going. After he loses his business, he and his friend work questionable jobs. One lands him in prison.
Understandably, Bogdan's life is a void - is it punishment for his transgression? What extent of wrong did he commit by not committing to help, or at least report the accident?
The Unmade World weaves together two disparate lives that have nothing to do with each other, other than being on a treacherous stretch of road at the same time. The book is a sprawling one, taking in a ten year time period within its roughly 370 pages, but what a ride. It came out in 2018, so there's definitely commentary about the political situation here at the time and in Poland, how Poland changed during the post-communist era, and how journalism evolved and still does in our time of online everything, especially the news.
The author has an interesting background - he's based out of the Boston area, but he's originally from Mississippi. A good chunk of his output would put him in the Southern Writer category, but not this book. It was by chance that I saw his comment on an opinion piece in the New York Times, and was looking for another book to read - knocked this one back in less than a week, and I'm a slow reader. Yarbrough is definitely a worthy writer, and he has a newer one out from last year - Stay Gone Days. You can get them both at the Greensboro Public Library.
(William Hicks, Information Services)
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