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Item Description

A New York Times Editors' Choice

Named a Best Book of 2018 by Bookforum, Nylon, Esquire, and Vulture

"This artful and autumnal novel, published in high summer, is a gift to those who wish to receive it." —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

"Hilarious, heartbreaking . . . A Terrible Country may be one of the best books you'll read this year." —Ann Levin, Associated Press

"The funniest work of fiction I've read this year." —Christian Lorentzen, Vulture.com

A literary triumph about Russia, family, love, and loyalty—the first novel in ten years from a founding editor of n+1 and author of All the Sad Young Literary Men

When Andrei Kaplan’s older brother Dima insists that Andrei return to Moscow to care for their ailing grandmother, Andrei must take stock of his life in New York. His girlfriend has stopped returning his text messages. His dissertation adviser is dubious about his job prospects. It’s the summer of 2008, and his bank account is running dangerously low. Perhaps a few months in Moscow are just what he needs. So Andrei sublets his room in Brooklyn, packs up his hockey stuff, and moves into the apartment that Stalin himself had given his grandmother, a woman who has outlived her husband and most of her friends. She survived the dark days of communism and witnessed Russia’s violent capitalist transformation, during which she lost her beloved dacha. She welcomes Andrei into her home, even if she can’t always remember who he is.

A wise, sensitive novel about Russia, exile, family, love, history and fate, A Terrible County asks what you owe the place you were born, and what it owes you. Writing with grace and humor, Keith Gessen gives us a brilliant and mature novel that is sure to mark him as one of the most talented novelists of his generation.

"A fresh and often very funny perspective on contemporary Russia."
—San Francisco Chronicle

"Laser-true and very funny . . . Gessen evokes not only convincingly, but indispensably, something exceedingly rare in modern American fiction; genuine male vulnerability. There's enough heart here to redeem every recent male novel that's aimed for it and found solipsism instead . . . You won't read a more observant book about the country that has now been America's bedeviling foil for almost a century." —The New York Times Book Review

"Wily, seductive and deeply affecting. . . . It's as personable a book as it is political. . . . A great book with a great heart." —Michael Upchurch, The Seattle Times

Used - Like new

Published 2019. 352 pages. 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2" Paperback

Item Special Note

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