Pu-239 And Other Russian Fantasies
by Ken Kalfus
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Kalfus plucks individual lives from the stew of a century of Russian history and serves them up in tales that range from hair-raising to comic to fabulous. The astonishing title story follows a doomed nuclear power plant worker as he hawks a most unusual package on the black market?a canister of weapons-grade plutonium. In ?Orbit," the first cosmonaut navigates several items not on the preflight checklist as he prepares to blaze the trail for the new communist society, ?floating free of show more terrestrial compromise." In ?Budyonnovsk," a young man hopes desperately that the takeover of his town show lessTags
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The gods and monsters of the crumbling Soviet Union, the unfortunate who end up on the wrong side of every possible fence, are the inhabitants of PU-239 and Other Russian Fantasies by Ken Kalfus. Mother Russia emerges as Kalfus's most frustrating, sympathetic presence in this thrilling, inventive collection.
These are dark gritty stories of Russia's past, from pre-WWII through the cold war and into post Perostroika. They evoke a sense of familiarity of what we conventionally think of as an oppressive Soviet state, but these stories also let us imagine what it might be like to be entirely human during those times, and how one might have been inspired by the ideals of socialism, representing a notion of human development which is lost upon the present-day American mind.
I read the title story after hearing the HBO (or was it Showtime) movie was really good. The story is pretty good and ends with a great moment. I really like Kalfus's writing, so I'll be sure to finish this off in the near future.
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178 works; 9 members
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10+ Works 1,230 Members
Ken Kalfus is an American writer who has lived in Paris, Dublin, Belgrade, and most recently, Moscow. His first book, Thirst (also available from WSP), was one of the most celebrated story collections in recent years, meriting inclusion in the best-of-the-year lists of the New York Times, Salon, the Village Voice, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. show more (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Members
- 174
- Popularity
- 188,295
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.60)
- Languages
- English, Italian, Polish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 4
