Synopses & Reviews
Olga Grushins astonishing literary debut has won her comparisons with everyone from Gogol to Nabokov. A virtuoso study in betrayal and its consequences, it exploresreally, colonizesthe consciousness of Anatoly Sukhanov, who many years before abandoned the precarious existence of an underground artist for the perks of a Soviet
apparatchik. But, at the age of 56, his perfect life is suddenly disintegrating. Buried dreams return to haunt him. New political alignments threaten to undo him. Vaulting effortlessly from the real to the surreal and from privilege to paranoia,
The Dream Life of Sukhanov is a darkly funny, demonically entertaining novel.
Review
"Seldom has a first novel so perfectly captured a historical moment that seems most real because it resonates with the disaster of an individual life." Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
"Grushin attracts the reader with evocations of places and people, even foods, that reflect the mingled sentimentality and abhorrence of the willing exile from Moscow." New York Times
Review
"In well-honed prose with vivid imagery, Grushin provides a portrait of a culture, interplaying art with politics in twentieth-century Russia, and dealing throughout with the universal subjects of love and truth." Booklist
Review
"Brilliant work from a newcomer who's already an estimable American writer." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Though an absorbing chronicle of life at the end of the Soviet era, this is really much more a meditation on society, art, truth, and life." Library Journal
Synopsis
Olga Grushin's astonishing literary debut has won her comparisons with everyone from Gogol to Nabokov. A virtuoso study in betrayal and its consequences, it explores really, colonizes the consciousness of Anatoly Sukhanov, who many years before abandoned the precarious existence of an underground artist for the perks of a Soviet apparatchik. But, at the age of 56, his perfect life is suddenly disintegrating. Buried dreams return to haunt him. New political alignments threaten to undo him. Vaulting effortlessly from the real to the surreal and from privilege to paranoia, The Dream Life of Sukhanov is a darkly funny, demonically entertaining novel.
About the Author
Olga Grushin was born in Moscow in 1971. She studied at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow State University, and Emory University. Her short fiction has appeared in Partisan Review, Confrontation, The Massachusetts Review, and Art Times. This is her first novel. Grushin, who became an American citizen in 2002, lives in Washington, D.C.