Homer, Son of Mandelstam

“Homer, son of Mandelstam” is the second edition of the novel “Homer” published ten years ago; its new title was borrowed with Elena Zeifert’s kind permission from her review that appeared in the magazine “Znamya” at the same time.

Igor (Goshka) Mеркушев, nicknamed Homer since childhood, intends to end his life on his sixtieth birthday—this is the only way he can lure into a trap a high-ranking official who committed a serious crime and has been relentlessly pursuing him.

Telling about himself, his parents, loved women, friends and enemies, Merkushev—a once prominent medical scientist, and later a vice-mayor of a million-plus city—utters a phrase that could serve not only as an epigraph to his narrative, but also as a diagnosis for an unbearably painful breakdown of an era: “We aren’t a lost generation—we’re a stuck-on generation.”