Fourteen Days

Illegal use of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, and their analogs harms health. Their illegal trafficking is prohibited and entails responsibility under the law.

“Fourteen Days” is an unusual novel compiled from novellas written by 36 authors. The project was assembled under the editorial direction of Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston, with the participation of the Writers Guild of America. The book is called a notable phenomenon in contemporary literature: it is a layered literary puzzle in the spirit of George Perec’s experiments and his “Life: A User’s Manual.” Among the authors are Tess Gerritsen, John Grisham, Dave Eggers, Celeste Ng, Emma Donoghue, and other well-known names.

The action unfolds against the backdrop of the 2020 pandemic, which produced fear and confusion comparable to the anxieties of the Middle Ages. Some—like the characters of “The Decameron”—went away from big cities, while those who had nowhere to run had to endure isolation at home. Residents of a New York high-rise, worn out by lockdown, climb onto the rooftops at night: there they tell stories to one another and listen to someone else’s. In these stories, you’ll find everything—from a frightening encounter with a ghost, to reading poems by Marina Tsvetaeva, to strange reflections on how to reconcile warring rabbits. Over time, the number of listeners increases, but no one realizes that one of the attendees is secretly recording every story and supplementing it with their own comments. Where will these nightly conversations lead?

For the first time in Russian.