The Tsar of Love and Techno

I love Anthony Marra's books. They are about Russia and Chechnya and places I've never cared about and yet the raw sweetness to his writing on war and crime and love and family touches my heart. His characters have many flaws, but there is usually something about them achingly human that makes you like them anyway. A few things today that touched me. A boy thinks his dad is weird and narcissistic because he has a photo of himself taken each birthday and hangs on the wall. “Not photos of me or Mom, just of you It's like you saw a photo spread of Kim Jong il's living room and really liked his style,” the son says. And then he learns the reason behind the hanging of the photos. His father explains, finally, “There are no photos of my father. There used to be, but my mother had to destroy them. ... I can't remember his face. I don't know who he was. I don't know where I began, Seryozha. ... They are for you. So you will know.” So many things we dislike or condemn because we don't know the reason behind it.
Another, I won't give details because of a spoiler but it's a memory of a perfect day, of two boys seeing how much their father loved their Mom, of how happy their mother was, and knowing that it was only months later that she died. Remembering that scene of the happy day, the son says, “What an improbably thing it is to be alive on Earth.” And that sentence struck home to me, and made me so appreciate being alive this day, and reminded me not to waste a minute of this amazing life.
I also love the way he weaves individual stories together, so you realize you're learning about the grandson of a character you learned of much earlier, and see how the things he put in place long had beautiful results.