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First Published:
Oct 2015, 352 pages
Paperback:
Jul 2016, 384 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Rebecca Foster
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From the New York Times bestselling author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena - dazzling, poignant, and lyrical interwoven stories about family, sacrifice, the legacy of war, and the redemptive power of art.
This stunning, exquisitely written collection introduces a cast of remarkable characters whose lives intersect in ways both life-affirming and heartbreaking. A 1930s Soviet censor painstakingly corrects offending photographs, deep underneath Leningrad, bewitched by the image of a disgraced prima ballerina. A chorus of women recount their stories and those of their grandmothers, former gulag prisoners who settled their Siberian mining town. Two pairs of brothers share a fierce, protective love. Young men across the former USSR face violence at home and in the military. And great sacrifices are made in the name of an oil landscape unremarkable except for the almost incomprehensibly peaceful past it depicts.
In stunning prose, with rich character portraits and a sense of history reverberating into the present, The Tsar of Love and Techno is a captivating work from one of our greatest new talents.
The Tsar of Love and Techno
st. petersburg, 2010; kirovsk, 1990s
1
Galina called to say she had bought me a first-class ticket to Moscow, and then she said that my brother was dead. I couldn't believe my luck. I'd never even received first-class mail since the postal service introduced it six years ago, let alone a first-class train compartment. As for Kolya, well, he'd been dead for years.
She lived in a top-floor penthouse with a chest-tightening view, lined with thick white carpets that may have been polar bear pelts. Wealth announces itself with what's easy to break and impossible to clean. The chairs were all curvy works of art that turned sitting into yoga exercises. Jasmine and plum perfumed the air. A crooning tenor went into histrionics on the Bose. Dozy bronze Buddhas meditated on the bookshelf. I was wondering if artsy-fartsy types in Tibet fetishize crucifixes when Galina returned, her loosely tied kimono yawning at the chest and knees.
"My. God. Who...
Wartime history and artistic expression are this book's twin poles, and for both of them Marra draws powerful contrasts between the airbrushed image and the reality it hides. In a seemingly vast and uncaring universe, human connections and creative freedom are what provide meaning. This is a rich set of stories that will reward repeat readings. It cements Marra's place among the best young writers in America today.
(Reviewed by Rebecca Foster).
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A fictional nineteenth-century pastoral painting by real-life Chechen painter, Pyotr Zakharov-Chechenets, features in one of the stories in The Tsar of Love and Techno.
Pyotr Zakharov-Chechenets was born in 1816 during the Caucasian War, which was the subject of historical fiction from Tolstoy, Lermontov, and Pushkin. In 1819 the three-year-old was found beside his dead mother and nursed back to health by Zakhar Nedonosov, from whom he received his surname. The term "Chechenets" was then appended to his last name to show his ethnic identity. When he was seven years old the boy was adopted by Major-General Pyotr Yermolov, who raised him alongside his seven children.
Zakharov showed early talent for painting but was initially ...
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