A Date with Quasimodo

Smart girl Yulia has been hurt since childhood by the belief that her mother is not beautiful. She’s resentful toward all “ugly” women who don’t get written about in her favorite books—and she invents stories in which ugly girls triumph over beauties. But the stories never worked out: beauty always won.

Then she finished the psychology faculty and became a forensic psychologist. And an endless stream of all kinds of criminals poured through her life—murderers, “perverts”… And she discovered with surprise that the reason behind an enormous number of crimes was beauty. The beauty she so sharply lacked in her own prosperous life. And she started searching for beauty online—and in the end, she got caught in that network herself.

Alexander Melykhov

Alexander Melykhov is a writer and editor, a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences. He has been publishing as a prose writer since 1979. The author of numerous novels, articles, and interviews. His works have been translated into English, Hungarian, Italian, Chinese, Korean, German, and Polish. Winner of literary awards. The novel presented for your attention, “A Date with Quasimodo,” has entered the long list of the “Yasnaya Polyana” prize.