It all begins in the eponymous dog park. Here the readership meets Olenka for the first time. Here, in turn, Sofi Oksanen’s protagonist realizes that her supposedly secure existence as a cleaning lady is threatened. The past catches up with her at the Helsinki Dog Park, and she sits next to her on the park bench in the person of Daria, an old friend. Both of them didn’t bring a four-legged friend with them, but came to observe the children of a certain family. Children born to both women, but who now have other parents.
In flashbacks, Olenka recounts her previous life. Her thoughts do not follow a chronological sequence, but rather plot lines. Sometimes she is the child who is suddenly shipped from Tallinn to a small backwoods village in Ukraine, her father’s homeland. He followed the call of an old friend and money. Another time, she’s Olenka, the businesswoman who obliges wealthy western families to have children and recruits possible egg donors and surrogate mothers. She is good at her job and successful. Career, money, love – she had everything she ever wanted and she lost it all. Bit by bit, the reader learns how the little girl, who preferred to watch Finnish series, became part of the fertility industry and finally feared for her life as a hidden cleaning lady.
The time jumps require some concentration, but also add to the suspense of learning who is threatening Olenka’s life.
On the one hand, what makes this book exceptional is its atmospheric density. On the other hand, there is Oksanen’s storytelling. With a linguistic ease, she devotes herself to a difficult topic that is difficult to evade. Down to the smallest detail, the systematic approach to the “assisted acquisition of children” is examined, made possible by legislation that only grants legal protection to future, wealthy parents. No effort is too great to adjust the CVs of the donors and surrogate mothers, mostly orphans from children’s homes. Nothing is left to chance to meet the demands of wealthy western clientele.
A literary thriller about greed, corruption, intrigue, betrayal and, last but not least, love. Exciting, topical and profound.
Source: Nachrichten
