"Pu-239" and Other Russian Fantasies: Novella and Stories: A Novella and Stories - Tapa dura

The award-winning author of "Thirst" plucks individual lives from a century of Russian history and serves them up in tales that range from hair-raising to comic to fabulous.

With the publication of his first story collection, Thirst -- also a New York Times Notable Book of the Year -- Ken Kalfus garnered comparisons to such acclaimed bestselling authors as David Foster Wallace and Lorrie Moore. Now, in this eagerly anticipated follow-up -- drawn from his four years living in Moscow and traveling across the breadth of the Russian landscape -- Kalfus plucks individual lives from the stew of a century of turbulent history and serves them up in tales that range from hair-raising to comic to fabulous. The title story follows a nuclear power plant worker as he hawks a most unusual package on the black market -- a canister of weapons-grade plutonium. In "Anzhelika, 13", a young girl guiltily perceives a connection between the onset of her menstrual period and the death of Stalin. In "Budyonnovsk", a man hopes desperately that the takeover of his town by Chechen rebels will somehow save his marriage. And the closing novella, "Peredelkino", traces the fortunes of a 1960s literary 'apparatchik' whose romantic intrigues inadvertently become political. Imaginative, densely detailed, and consistently rewarding, PU-239 is a brilliant showcase for "one of the most interesting writers working today".