The events of Sargis Hovsepian’s novel Serenity span three decades of Armenian independence, from the mid-1990s to 2018. Serenity is set between the First and Second Karabakh Wars, and if the author’s intention for the novel’s title is even for a different purpose and is a formulation of certain experiences of the protagonist, then it could also be an implied title for the period, if the novel is viewed not as a drama of interpersonal relationships, but in a historical context.

In terms of structure, Serenity unfolds on two parallel timelines: one is the revolution of 2018, the other is the post-war era of the 1990s. Initially, we meet the two main characters, Ben and Turo, who are longtime friends, and then through flashbacks, we learn the history of their friendship. In the novel’s final chapters, the parallel timelines converge in the present.

The novel is written in the third person, but the narrator primarily views reality through the eyes of one of the characters, Ben. Turo appears whenever Ben meets him or thinks about him. This pattern is only disrupted in the final part of the novel, when, as mentioned, the parallel timelines converge. To characterize these characters very broadly, Ben is a more thoughtful, contemplative, and skeptical figure who has difficulty taking action, whereas Turo, on the contrary, is very much a man of action. But when the narrator shifts his point of view, moving the proverbial camera from Ben to Turo, suddenly it’s Ben who starts taking action, while Turo is left bewildered.

The story of the brotherhood begins with military life in the 1990s, passes through numerous trials, and is cemented by shame, guilt, revenge, and a series of joint misdeeds. This brotherhood survives all possible and impossible trials, approaching the threshold of changing times. Its historical name is revolution, but Benny and Turo’s participation in this political event is driven by their own code of honor. They join the popular movement because someone failed to keep their word, one of them has kids and is fighting for them, another one is concerned with protecting the young people who took to the streets from the cops, and so on.

Turo, is married with children; his wife, Margo, is like a sister to Ben. She sets the table, cleans up, visits the hospital, and brings linens, understands Turo’s periodic lapses into lewdness. As for Ben, he had one failed marriage; his wife moved to the United States with their unborn child, and Ben maintains no contact with them. According to Turo, Ben’s ex-wife was a bitch because she couldn’t accept the brotherhood’s hierarchy. But she also didn’t try to disrupt the men’s pristine camaraderie. The new woman in Ben’s life, Zhanna, is not so harmless. Turo immediately senses that Zhanan is a more dangerous “slut”, and her appearance in Benny’s life threatens the strong bonds of the brotherhood. At first, she succeeds in separating the pair, but then the couple makes new attempts to reunite, which doesn’t end well for the brotherhood, as Turo kills Ben unable to accept that his friend can chose a woman instead of the old friendship.

The novel is about the choice society had to make after the Revolution in 2018. The change in political course divided the society into those who protect the old, stable eventhough corrupt system, while the other half supported the change towards a more democratic path, yet full of obstacles and disterbances to overcome. This is also a novel about changing times and relationships, a requiem if you will. It’s a story of male intimacy, a subject on which fiction is not usually created in our society. If it’s addressed at all, the subculture of brotherhood is often depicted with notes of grotesque caricature. Sargis Hovsepian has taken those relationships and romanticized them, showing the reader the lyricism of a patriarchal and brutal world.