This huge novel is set in Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. A prefatory note by “R.C.H.” in Testament purports to explain that his book is based on a faithful adaptation, although with names changed, of a memoir given him in Paris by Captain Alexei Otraveskov. The vision in Testament is personal, from the ground up; there is no panorama, no sweep of history, and it gives a vivid sense of the sheer chaotic muddle of the revolution, and its dislocating and destructive terror. This is not a comfortable or indeed a comforting novel. However, its range and passionate vivacity are such that it should promote Hutchinson to the pantheon of British novelists of the twentieth century. - Emily Temple