A Terrible Country

Starred review from May 28, 2018
In Gessen’s exceptional and trenchant novel, floundering 30-something professor Andrei Kaplan flees from New York to Russia, the country of his birth, to reassess his future and take care of his ailing grandmother. Called abroad by his enterprising older brother, Dima, Andrei arrives in Moscow to find the city of his memory surreally changed, his 89-year-old grandmother’s apartment one of the few spaces exempt from a partial Westernization. Andrei’s early attempts to reorient himself to post-Soviet Russian society bring about considerable insight and humor—getting rebuffed by a men’s adult hockey league, getting pistol-whipped outside a nightclub—leading him back to watching old Russian films with his grandmother. Eventually, though, Andrei carves out a place for himself among a group of leftists known as October, whose ranks include Yulia, a devout radical with whom Andrei embarks on a romantic relationship. Gessen (All the Sad Young Literary Men) meticulously forges these bonds before casting them in doubt, as Andrei’s involvement in a protest complicates the new life he has built. While poised to critique Putin’s Russia, this sharp, stellar novel becomes, by virtue of Andrei’s ultimate self-interest, a subtle and incisive indictment of the American character. Agent: Sarah Chalfant, the Wylie Agency

Narrator Ari Fliakos strikes the right tone between pathos and irony in his narration of Gessen's novel. Russian-born Andrei, a struggling Ph.D. candidate living in New York City, returns to Moscow to care for his grandmother. Fliakos draws the listener in with his warm conversational tone; one can imagine oneself sitting with Andrei and Baba Seva at her kitchen table. Yet Andrei's ambivalence at returning to the "terrible country" of his birth informs Fliakos's reading as the conflict between his personal and professional obligations comes to a head. Fliakos's rendering of Baba Seva is both heartbreaking and hilarious, leaving an indelible impression of this frail and feisty elderly woman. This fully realized performance of a compelling novel will no doubt find many fans. D.G.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine