She had had enough shame. But she’d also had enough of that dungeon of a life with Ivan.

She couldn’t tell people the truth. Anyway, they didn’t want to know.

Petrunia stood before an icon, arms outstretched, like two doors opened wide, and her fingers wouldn’t come together to say a prayer. She was incapable of praying to the Lord, or turning to Satan for help. For neither of them could help her. She had taken this path of her own free will.

More than a family saga, Hardly, Ever Otherwise is the tale of the same event – a terrible event – that happened to one family, told from different points of view, corresponding to the neighbors and close friends of this particular family. The story takes place in Ukraine, in a small town on the Carpathian Mountains called, Tysova Rivnia, right before the war in 1911. It starts introducing us to the “main” family the novel will follow- the Cheviuk family: Kyrylo, Vasylyna, Pavlo, Dotsia, Andriy, Petrunia, Oksentiy, Dmytryk. The author merely introduces the family dynamics, what women can and cannot say, what they can and cannot do, when suddenly she tells the tale of how Dmytyk, the youngest son, commits the most unforgivable crime and that it is. The downward spiral in his and his brother Pavlo’s life starts.

In the spiral of tragedies, Matios introduces the rest of the town and how they interact with the family. She highlights how easily the people can be corrupted and how the only value that really matters is men’s property, including women. Although it was difficult to read due to the tragedies and helplessness, she has many quotable sentences that can resonate to different villages. I was expecting a family saga and understanding why brothers betray each other, but no. It is a story of how life was during the war. How loyalties only matter as long as love was not in the way. How a person can be killed or disappeared and still his memory will be used against him.

And even though the main event happens between a woman and a man, the novel follows the consequence of the event. And that consequence circumvents women. Their participation happens on the side, either they are the ones that cause the tragedies or they are the ones that take care of the people affected by the tragedies. The men simply continue on with their lives postwar or post-tragedy. At one point of the novel, two women are alone, their husbands have gone to war and two Russian soldiers appear in their backyard. The women are terrified, as they should be, and yet, one woman can only think about her body, “every highland woman was obliged first and foremost to be ashamed of her sex and her own body.” About the guilt she has to feel even though she is raising seven children on her own and of knowing her husband is probably with someone else…

This novel was published recently, Matios does a great job writing about Ukraine of another era. I enjoyed the similarities to Russian Literature where tragedies are just told, with no sugar-coating. They are simply a fact that the family, particularly the women, have to live with. Another similarity is the role honor plays and when sometimes it is not enough and it consumes the best in people.  I can’t say I enjoyed the novel or undoubtedly recommend it, but I did appreciate reading it and reading a young Ukrainian author, and it could be a great family saga.

About Maria Matios

Maria Matios was born in 1959 the village of Roztoky in Ukraine. She is a poet, novelist and playwriter, recently, a member of parliament. She started writing when she was very young and published her first novel in a Ukrainian magazine. She won the Taras Shevchenko National Award for the novel, Sweet Darusia.

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The UWF is a Ukrainian non profit with the mission to assist women and civil society organizations to play an active role in democratization and help them in their fight for human rights. It provides them with consultations services regarding governance and financial sustainability. The organization has six main projects aside from the grants they offer and the networking spaces. One of these projects, “Advancing Human Rights and Gender Equality through Community Mobilization for Empowerment,” is part of the UN Women projects and seeks to build safer communities for women and empower them by teaching advocacy skills to demand accountability from local and national authorities.