Like all good mysteries, A. Molotkov’s A Bag Full of Stones starts with a body. Only it’s a body that’s not there. Instead, there’s a dry, empty spot of pavement on Portland’s rainy streets where it’s possible a body might have been. It’s up to detectives Brenda Smith and Dmitry Volkov to decide if there is, in fact, anything worth investigating. Soon, they’re plunged into a flood of hatred, violence, and regret.
The novel utilizes multiple perspectives, switching between the murder victims and the murderer himself—dubbed The Corrector. This imbues the dead with a haunting humanity and forces us to sit uncomfortably with a man who seems to have lost his. The Corrector is out to save his country from the immigrant threat. He has a taste for Rush Limbaugh and is sunk deep in Discord’s swamp of hate. It would be easy to pin him up as the villain of this story and leave it at that. But Molotkov is not about to give us easy.
Our first view of is of him caring patiently for his dying mother, apatience our would-be hero detective Brenda can’t muster for her own dying father. And that seems to be the crux of the story: There are no real heroes here; only deeply flawed humans. Every character is struggling with “a bag full of stones.” Some will be drowned by them and a lucky few might find a way to carry the weight.
At its heart, this is a story of immigrants. From the young Iranian student who may become The Corrector’s next victim to one of the detectives trying to stop the killings, all came to the United States pursuing some version of a better life. That promise of immigration is on display in all its complexity throughout. We see it in the student’s wide-eyed belief in this country’s freedom, a belief about to be shattered by unspeakable violence. We see it in another victim’s assertion that his life had become too comfortable for the past he came from. And we see it perhaps most continually through the detective, Dmitry.
Dmitry is not the sort of immigrant that would interest The Corrector—a white man from a Christian family. But he’s perhaps the character most lost in this sea of America. He’s sunk into gambling debt with a dangerous man and every decision he makes to try to pull himself out only seems to drag him further down. They’re his own choices, he knows that. He’s responsible. But he can’t quite understand how his life went this way. This sort of life wasn’t meant to happen here. Back home, yes. But not here. He’s carried the weight of his Soviet childhood with him. It’s a stone he never seemed to shake.
Language is another knot tangling up these characters. Dmitry prides himself on having a better accent than another Russian immigrant, but there’s an ineffable sadness surrounding his love for his daughter Natasha who doesn’t share his language and is bound up in a world of babbling American cartoons. Some of The Corrector’s victims are striving to improve their English. The Iranian student uses a blend of English and Farsi with her sister, intersecting her old life with her new one. It becomes clear that what is really at issue here is communication. Brenda and Dmitry don’t have a language barrier, but in their first scene together they seem to be struggling to communicate. It’s not until they take on fake British accents that they appear to be on the same page.
The question then becomes, Are we ever really our full selves or are we always half-obscured by a role? Brenda’s work is her life, but in the liberal city of Portland she’s embarrassed to be a cop. Dmitry is determined to catch the killer but he sits down to dinner with another violent man. If we have to play different parts to communicate with different people, which part is real? When do all the parts coalesce into one? Hauntingly, it is the dead who seem to be shedding their roles and becoming their full selves. Without the need to channel their thoughts into language, those thoughts appear to take on a purer power.
Molotkov has created a world that is gray and unforgiving. Portland’s constant rain forms an oppressive blanket over most of the novel, yet there are moments where the sun unexpectedly shines. This is not a story for those who seek happy endings. The problems of the world have not been fixed. Many of the problems belonging to these few characters have not been fixed. Hate remains. But so does compassion.
A Bag Full of Stones is a novel for those who like stories that linger. The questions here are not easily answered or shrugged aside. Tenderness, hope, connection, conviction, violence, indifference, and much more are laid out stone by stone. It is up to the reader which they will carry away with them.
Publisher: Apprentice House Press
Publication date: May 29, 2025
Reviewed by B.B. Garin
B. B. Garin is a writer living in Buffalo, NY. Her story collection, New Songs for Old Radios, is available from Wordrunner Press. She is a recipient of the Sara Patton Fiction Stipend from The Writer’s Hotel. Her work has appeared in The Hawai’i Pacific Review, Luna Station Quarterly, Palooka, 3rd Wednesday, Crack the Spine, and more. Connect with her @bb_garin or bbgarin.wordpress.com.