Realism and magic realism entwin in The Tiger's Wife

I'm cautious not to judge a book too quickly, from the first 2 sections, about 80 pages, of Tea Obreht's "The Tiger's Wife," I'm very impressed - aside from the excellent writing, in which she gives beautiful and vivid descriptions of a series of events during wartime in Serbo-Croatia (wish I knew or remembered more about this history - not even sure the dates of the war, but by various cultural references the novel seems to center on events in the late 80s or early 90s?) - main character, Natalia?, is a young doctor on a mission bring meds to an orphanage in one of the neighboring states, a very tense journey taking her across a few borders in wartime, but as with other excellent war-time fiction, we also get a sharp sense of what life is like for ordinary people, not just combatants, during the events of war: on her journey to the orphanage she stops to make some phone calls, she's near a barbecue stand, we see what the people eat, we see the soldiers jostling, flirting with some girls - Obreht renders the whole scene with photographic exactitude. The call she is making - responding to messages - is about the death of her grandfather, a doctor who late in his life was forced to give up his public practice and see patients secretly because of the war - he was under suspicion. The grandfather is the central figure in this novel apparently - over the first 80 pp we move around in time quite a bit, we see Natalia in high school, when all the kids are pretty much allowed to run free, nobody has any boundaries or ambitious and parents can't or won't set limits with society in turmoil - and we see her even younger as she visits the city zoo with grandfather - he's fascinated with the tigers, perhaps too heavy-handed as symbolism, but it's a way for us to understand this character, his demands on and expectations of his granddaughter and her attempts to live up to his ideals, which puts her in conflict with her mother. Near end of section 2 there's a very dramatic scenes in which an interrogator comes into the apartment and tries to elicit info from the grandfather, who resists, to his peril. Also, the grandfather tells a rather long story about a patient who "could not die" - despite drowning, gunshots, etc. - a bit of fantasy or magic realism twisting its way into this realistic novel - I think there will be other such strands as well later in the book - and it will be interesting to see how these elements coalesce, what point Obreht is making, whether she'll be able modulate and integrate the different elements. Story has obvious Christian-allegorical themes - but also is about the tenacity of the people, or of the country itself - not actually named but evidently Croatia - in time of war.