Set in 1919 in Siberia, The People’s Act of Love by James Meek takes place at the end of a war. Yazyk is host to a gorup of Czech soldiers who only want to go home and a Christian sect that exercises castration as a way to become closer to God. Balashov, the leader of the Christian sect, has secrets of his own involving a widow, Anna Petrovna, who lives among these groups with her young son. Mutz, one of the Czech soliders who longs for home and yearns to get his wish, is in love with her.

Wandering through the cold and running, he says, from a cannibal called The Mohican, Samarin finds himself in Yazyk. With him he brings death; the local shaman’s body is found shortly after his arrival. He is suspected and locked up to await his trial. It is during his defense that the reader learns of his daring escape from The White Garden, a prison camp, with The Mohican under the understanding that The Mohican merely took Samarin along for sustenance.

On the border of all of this, the leader Matula is in conflict with the Red Army as they make their way to the town.

In reading such a succinct summary of this book, you would need convincing to believe that it’s actually a love story. True, the majority of the book is spent reading about each character’s life — the hopes, dreams, wishes, and ideas that motivate them and keep them alive, but what it comes down to is the love of one for another. It’s not a traditional love story: You cannot script it to a simple, “Boy meets girl, boy falls in love, girl runs away, boy follows her, etc,” idea, as you may be able to with other love stories.

There is death, violence, castration, pain, intelligence, stupidity, and compassion in this book — in short, The People’s Act of Love illustrates human nature without all the guff, without any forward explanation, and without criticism. The characters are pure in their reasoning, even if irrational at times, because they are not acting; they are simply performing based on their own humanity. Despite the gruesome events in this book, love remains a certainty. Time and again, the question of love and what it provokes people to do is addressed by each character in this book.

For example, Balashov in his intimate love for God and his religion deserts a battle and leaves his family to wander in a desolate land, castrate himself, and form a community of like-minded people. Anna, on the other hand, had at one point a true love, but in the course of the book she flickers from one man to the next using love as a point of getting what she needs.

James Meek said the following about this book during an interview: “If there is one thing which the four central characters in the book … agree on, it is that love exists and matters. What they disagree on is what love may be.”

It is difficult to review this book fully without giving away a lot of the plot. There are several twists and turns, some unexpected and some wholly anticipated, but perhaps not for the guessed reasons. This book is too good for me to sit here and talk about every aspect I enjoyed because I’d rather let you read it and discover those elements for yourself.