a brilliant and bitingly funny collection of stories united around a single crumbling apartment building in ukraine you ve never read anything like them elizabeth mccracken darkly hilarious anthony doerr bang on brilliant miriam toews fearless and thrilling bret anthony johnstona bureaucratic glitch omits an entire building along with its residents from municipal records so begins reva s ingeniously intertwined narratives nine stories that span the chaotic years leading up to and immediately following the fall of the soviet union but even as the benighted denizens of 1933 ivansk street weather the official neglect of the increasingly powerless authorities they devise ingenious ways to survive in bone music an agoraphobic recluse survives by selling contraband lps mapping the vinyl grooves of illegal western records into stolen x ray film a delusional secret service agent in letter of apology becomes convinced he s being covertly recruited to guard lenin s tomb just as his parents not seen since he was a small child supposedly were weaving the narratives together is the unforgettable chameleon like zaya a cleft lipped orphan in little rabbit a beauty pageant crasher in miss ussr a sadist for hire to the eastern bloc s newly minted oligarchs in homecoming good citizens need not fear tacks from moments of intense paranoia to surprising tenderness and back again exploring what it is to be an individual amid the roiling forces of history inspired by her and her family s own experiences in ukraine reva brings the black absurdism of early shteyngart and the sly interconnectedness of anthony marra s tsar of love and techno to a collection that is as clever as it is heartfelt
maria reva
doubleday books
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