Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle

Book Review

Elloise Hopkins

Konstantin Duhovny, Kostya to his family, Bones to his best friend, and Stan, to a girl he is yet to meet, was always an outsider, never quite fitting in, never quite knowing his place. Before his father died, they would often play a game. His father would have him taste something and Kostya would have to identify the food. That day, when his father died, Kostya was angry. Angry that his father did not have time to play. Angry that they had come to America. Angry that he did not fit in with the American boys.

After that day Kostya began to experience aftertastes, intense flavours would come to him at unexpected moments, when there was no food around. It was like memories, except he tasted food that he himself had never eaten. Pechonka. His father’s favourite dish. A dish that Kostya had never eaten, but without knowing why or how, he knew this aftertaste came from his father. That one was only the beginning.

Working in The Library of Spirits, a New York speakeasy that one had to enter through a bookstore, Kostya gets a customer three minutes before closing time. He knows he shouldn’t, but the man is grieving, desperate, and when Kostya gets an aftertaste of the man’s late wife’s cocktail, he knows what he has to do… recreate the taste. Kostya discovers what his aftertastes can do, and realises he may be able to do the one thing he really wants to, bring back his father, and take back those awful last words he said to him.

Aftertaste is an exceptional and unique journey into the world of gourmet cuisine and the memories and regrets we carry. Kostya’s desperation to see his father again has shaped his life and continues to do so. We see Kostya work his way up to becoming a chef and pursuing his goal to cook aftertastes, supported by his best friend and roommate, Frankie, also a chef. A night out and a trip to a fortune teller results in Kostya finding love, though as the story unfolds he discovers there is much more to Maura than he realises.

Much of the story reads like magical realism, with some of the chapters narrated by characters whose identities become clear as the tale from Kostya’s beginnings leads up to the present day and the peak of his culinary success. From that first cocktail, Kostya discovers he can bring a spirit back from death, and just like him, his diners relish that one last opportunity to see their loved ones. But, as Maura warned him, when it comes to ghosts with unfinished business, things may not be as straightforward as they first seemed.

This is a stunning debut; a magical, never-read-before experience from start to finish. The prose is truly exquisite. Every morsel of every dish is described in mouth-watering detail, clearly by someone with a huge respect for flavour and the memories and moments we associate with a taste. Through that delectable detail, we explore the connections we feel to those we have lost, and the hold our memories and regrets can have over us.