Red Plenty

December 19, 2011
Though the intricacies of Soviet central planning may seem an unlikely topic for a work of historical fiction, Spufford succeeds at distilling the dismal science into a page-turner and using the unconventional vehicles of linear planning, cybernetics, communal agricultural policy, and exposition on the respective merits of Marx and Hayek (buttressed by extensive footnotes) to explore the entire range of human emotion. In his first work of fiction, Spufford (The Child That Books Built) mixes in a lot of fact, interspersing stories of functionaries in the Soviet economy—real, imagined and composites—with brief essays expanding on the topics raised by their plight. In the late 1950s, socialism seemed on the verge of triumph: the Soviet Union was growing faster than the United States, and its leaders expected to overtake the West in material production and provide its people with an unmatched standard of living (“Socialism would have to mimic capitalism’s ability to run an industrial revolution, to marshal investment, to build modern life. Socialism would have to compete with capitalism at doing the same things as capitalism”). This is the story of that effort, and its inevitable failure, on a scale as large as a nation and as small as one factory worker. Extensively researched and both convincing and compelling in its idiosyncrasies (despite the author’s admission that he speaks no Russian), this genre-bending book surprises in many ways. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Associates.

Starred review from November 15, 2011
The strange, sad, hilarious story of the Soviet Union's blind pursuit of a Communist paradise, told through a mix of history and fiction, using both to get to the truth. Spufford (I May Be Some Time, 2003, etc.) traces the latter half of the history of the Soviet Union, starting in the late 1950s, when the Soviets were seeing an imaginary light over the horizon. After 40 years that included struggle, war, starvation and Stalin, the Marxist dream looked as if it might be taking off under Nikita Khrushchev. The Soviet Union's economic growth more than doubled that of the United States, and if it kept going at the same rate the "planned economy" would "overtake and surpass" capitalist America. Cars, food and houses would be better, and there would be more money and leisure all around, thanks to a top-down, start-to-finish management that "could be directed, as capitalism could not, to the fastest, most lavish fulfillment of human needs." Through a series of episodes involving economists, scientists, computer programmers, industrialists, artists and politicians--some real, some imagined, some drawn together from composites--Spufford tells the story of the life and death of a national illusion, as utopian dreams moldered into grim dystopian realities. The planned economy was a worker's nightmare, where production targets increased even as equipment became more and more outdated, and unforeseen, unplanned events--like the sudden loss of a spinning machine at a textile factory--set off a ripple effect of unproductiveness. Pay cuts and scarce commodities led to riots, such as one in Novocherkassk, where the dead bodies were hauled out and the bloody streets were repaved overnight. In his often-whimsical, somewhat Nabokovian notes, Spufford freely points out his own inventions, approximations and hedged bets on what might have happened. A highly creative, illuminating, genre-resisting history.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 1, 2012

An unusual work blending fiction with history, this is the story of a specific time and place: the Soviet Union in the late 1950s, when its planned economy promised more prosperity than American capitalism. Historical figures like Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Vitalevich Kantorovich, the only Soviet to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, mingle with fictional scientists and mathematicians to show the struggle among differing views of how best to steer the Soviet economy. The book vividly captures debates about progress and pricing that sometimes boggle the mind, such as when resources are used to make products no one wants, and it also shows how the political machine chews up those who dare to protest. While the large number of people represented can be a bit overwhelming and, individually, are so interesting that readers are left wanting to know more about their fates, Spufford (The Child That Books Built) presents an amazingly clear portrait of complex economic policies that ultimately did not work. VERDICT Recommended for history and fiction readers with a taste for dystopian works like 1984 and for sweeping novels like those by Theodore Dreiser. [Notwithstanding the fictional aspects, this book is being presented as history by the publisher.--Ed.]--Evelyn Beck, Piedmont Technical Coll., Greenwood, SC

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2011
After making a splash in England, Spufford's newest novel is likely to do the same in the U.S. If you think that a novel about the planned economy of the USSR from the 1950s through the 1970s would be boring, think again. Loosely based on real events, each of the book's interconnected vignettes gives insight into the bureaucrats, economists, and scientists who created the Soviet economy and all that it represented. From the voice of Khrushchev in the upper echelon of the Communist Party, to the story of Zoya, a young female biologist sent to study at a lab in Siberia, Spufford's narrative offers penetrating looks at an era rarely examined in this kind of human detail. Although the historical element can be daunting, Spufford's explanatory notes and references help readers navigate the more difficult sections. By teetering delicately between history and fiction, the novel leaves readers with a sense of the period that could not have been achieved with a straight, factual approach.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)