Dina Rubina’s new novel is “news” in every sense of the word: an unexpected virtuoso twist—“under the dome of literature,” an absolute transformation of the author’s style, her usual tone, and circle of themes. The fates of the novel’s characters are bizarre; in a “high-voltage” plot, love and crimes intertwine, talent and a passion capable of destroying a person’s identity or carrying them up to the heights of creativity.
Open this novel and you won’t be able to leave it—there’s a truly Babylonian confusion of types: city madmen and drunks, Russian nobles, exiles and convicts serving terms, “white colonizers” and “hunters for hashish”…