In a new novel by Booker Prize winner Alexander Ilіchevsky, a young scientist Ilya Dubnov, a U.S. citizen, after a painful divorce from his wife travels to the Caspian Sea—to the places of his childhood. There, in the backstreets of the former Soviet empire, he meets a school friend, Hashem Sagidi, an Iranian native. A man of nature, he lives in a reserve and teaches falcons how to hunt. Out on the steppe, with the gamekeepers he creates a sort of phalanstery—the Apsheron regiment named after Velimir Khlebnikov—carrying the seed of a new faith…