Everyone loves a good fable, and this is an Armenian beauty. There is an old Armenian saying that the three apples that fell from heaven were for the storyteller, the listener and the eavesdropper.

Abgaryan has set her story in a mountainous village accessible only by a road and an ancient telegraph. The village has been through war, drought, earthquake and famine. The remaining residents go steadily about their daily lives, harvesting crops, feeding their livestock, gossiping and bickering.

The author provides their family backgrounds, including the reasons for nicknames, and there is a touch of magic realism to those seemingly banal and hard-scrabble lives. When replacement livestock arrived years before, after the drought and famine, among them was an elegant white peacock, seemingly linked to the birth of one couple’s grandson. That link is completed years later when the grandson and his own family come to visit.

This is a simple story, full of the delights of mountain living, as well as its hardships. There is simple affection between the people, pleasure in preparing food from what they have grown and raised, and a pride in keeping yards and houses spotless.

The village and its people may be ageing and dying, but there is more than a glimmer of hope for the future.

Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville