by Ken Kalfus
First published 2011
A nuclear power plant worker faces certain death from radiation exposure. He steals plutonium and heads to Moscow, hoping to sell it and provide for his family before he dies. His desperate scheme unfolds against the chaotic backdrop of post-Soviet Russia, where everything has a price but nothing has value. Meanwhile, other Russians navigate their own impossible situations across a century of upheaval. A man in Budyonnovsk watches Chechen rebels take his town and wonders if war might somehow repair his failing marriage. A Jewish couple travels to the Soviet Far East in the 1920s, dreaming of building a homeland in the wilderness. A literary bureaucrat in the 1960s discovers that his love affairs have become dangerous political entanglements. Each character struggles to find meaning and survival in a world where the rules keep changing and the ground shifts beneath their feet.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century
Vibes: dark, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: desperate-measures, survival
Setting: Moscow, Russia
Period: Post-Soviet Era
312 pages · Paperback · Milkweed Editions
Content warnings: death, violence