The Concert Ticket - Olga Grushin

This unsettling story, set in Soviet Russia, describes the effect on a small family (mother, father, son and grandmother) of their participation in a year-long queue to secure a concert ticket, rumoured to be for a one-off return performance by an exiled composer. I read it assuming that it was written as a parable, exaggerated for effect, but bizarrely, the epilogue explains that it was inspired by real events: when Stravinsky accepted a 1962 invitation to return to Russia after 50 years away, "the line for tickets began a year before the performance and evolved into a unique and complex social system, with people working together and taking turns standing in line". The same thing happens to the characters in this novel - their 'real' lives gradually disintegrate as their obsession with the tickets grows, and the social world of the line becomes more significant to them than their existing relationships - or sometimes even the promised ticket itself... The book is engagingly written and the characters are believable and (mostly) likeable despite their often destructive impulses. I was intrigued by the mysterious old man near the start of the line who initially invites Anna (the mother) to "join us", explaining that the kiosk is selling "whatever you'd most like to have", and later reflects on the enlivening power of their shared experience of hope, quoting a poem:

"When you long for something intensely,
when you long for a long time,
the purity of your wait transforms
your very nature from within"

I was interested to see in an interview with the author that she says that this character contains echoes of her much-admired father.
For most of the book I found it quite bleak, as the characters seem to be neglecting opportunities to rebuild their relationships in favour of future fantasies about the solutions the concert ticket will bring, but towards the end of the book there is a major shift - perhaps proving the old man's point - as they all start to face up to their own flaws and move from deceitful scheming about how to acquire the ticket for themselves, towards a more honest and generous way of relating to each other, which makes for a more satifsying and uplifting ending.