Synopses & Reviews
Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible is a journey into the glittering, surreal heart of 21st century Russia: into the lives of oligarchs convinced they are messiahs, professional killers with the souls of artists, bohemian theater directors turned Kremlin puppet-masters, supermodel sects, post-modern dictators and playboy revolutionaries. This is a world erupting with new money and new power, changing so fast it breaks all sense of reality, where life is seen as a whirling, glamorous masquerade where identities can be switched and all values are changeable. It is a completely new type of society where nothing is true and everything is possible yet it is also home to a new form of authoritarianism, built not on oppression but avarice and temptation.
Peter Pomerantsev, ethnically Russian but raised in England, came to Moscow work in the fast-growing television and film industry. The job took him into every nook and corrupt cranny of the country: from meetings in smoky rooms with propaganda gurus through to distant mafia-towns in Siberia. As he becomes more successful in his career, he gets invited to the best parties, becomes friend to oligarchs and strippers alike, and grows increasingly uneasy as he is drawn into the mechanics of Putins post-modern dictatorship.
In Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, we meet Vitaliy, a mafia boss proudly starring in a film about his own crimes; Zinaida, a Chechen prostitute who parties in Moscow while her sister is drawn towards becoming a Jihadi; and many more. These 21st century Russians grew up among Soviet propaganda they never believed in, became disillusioned with democracy after the fall of communism, and are now filled with a sense of cynicism and enlightenment. Pomerantsev captures the bling effervescence of oil-boom Russia, as well as the steadily deleterious effects of all this flash and cynicism on the countrys social fabric. A long-nascent conflict is flaring up in Russia as a new generation of dissidents takes to the streets, determined to defy the Kremlins and fight for a society where beliefs and values actually count for something.
The stories recounted in Nothing is True and Everything is Possible are wild and bizarre and lavishly entertaining, but they also reveal the strange and sober truth of a societys return from post-Soviet freedom to a new and more complex form of tyranny.
Review
An Amazon.com Best Book of the Month, November 2014and#147;Captivatingand#133;keen observationsand#8221;and#151;New York Times Book Review
and#147;Sparkling collection of essaysand#8221;and#151;Wall Street Journal
and#147;Enthrallingand#133; his exquisite rendering of mind-control techniques is chilling.and#8221;and#151;Times Literary Supplement
and#147;This is a gripping and unsettling account of life in grim post-Soviet Russia.and#8221;and#151;Washington Post
"Brilliant collection of sketches...powerful, moving and sometimes hilarious"and#151;Washington Times
and#147;Hauntingly perceptive and beautifully writtenand#8221;and#151;New Statesman (UK)
"[A] tale of descending into and eventually emerging from Moscowand#8217;s hallucinogenic reality.and#8221;and#151;Foreign Affairs
and#147;[A] riveting, urgent book ... Pomerantsev is one of the most perceptive, imaginative and entertaining commentators writing on Russia today and, much like the country itself, his first book is seductive and terrifying in equal measure.and#8221; and#151;The Times (UK)
and#147;A scintillating take on a twisted realityand#8221;and#151;Prospect Magazine
and#147;Everything you know about Russia is wrong, according to this eye-opening, mind-bending memoir of a TV producer caught between two culturesand#133; the stylish rendering of the Russian culture, which both attracts and appalls the author, will keep the reader captivated.and#8221;and#151;Kirkus, STARRED
"Sometimes horrifying but always compelling, this book exposes the bizarre reality hiding beneath the facade of a and#145;youthful, bouncy, glossy country.'"and#151;Publishers Weekly
and#147;It is hard to think of another work that better describes todayand#8217;s Russia; Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible may very well be the defining book about the Putin era. This might seem like excessive praise for a relatively short, non-academic memoir by a reality-TV producer now living in London, but it is justified by the authorand#8217;s gimlet eye and reportorial skill."and#151;Commentary Magazine
and#147;A brilliant, entertaining, and ultimately tragic book about not only Russia, but the West.and#8221;and#151;Tablet Magazine,
and#147;This is the strangest book of note I have ever readand#133; a dark and grotesque comedy of mannersand#133; His reporterand#8217;s straightforward and unlimited curiosity, his willingness to plow and harrow the widest fields for facts, and his exacting descriptive details give him credibility. Plus, what he tells us is so incredible.and#8221; and#151;World Affairs Journal
and#147;A riveting portrait of the new Russia with all its corruption, willful power and spasms of unforgettable, poetic glamor. I couldn't put it down.and#8221;and#151;Tina Brown
and#147;Peter Pomeranzev, one of the most brilliant observers of Putin's Russia, describes a country obsessed with illusion and glamor, but with a dangerous, amoral core beneath the surface. Nothing is True and Everything is Possible is an electrifying, terrifying book.and#8221;and#151;Anne Applebaum, author of Gulag and Iron Curtain, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction
and#147;Startling, original, and totally gripping. Pomerantsev takes us to the ripe, rotten heart of post-Soviet Russiaand#151;a godforsaken gangster town, a prison where people are locked away on a whimand#151;places we couldnand#8217;t have seen without his piercing vision. It is a story told in language at once lovely and disconcerting, by a man who knows the place with a fierce intimacy.and#8221; and#151;Tunku Varadarajan, former editor, Newsweek International; research fellow at Stanford Universityand#8217;s Hoover Institution
Synopsis
In the new Russia, even dictatorship is a reality show.
Professional killers with the souls of artists, would-be theater directors turned Kremlin puppet-masters, suicidal supermodels, Helland#8217;s Angels who hallucinate themselves as holy warriors, and oligarch revolutionaries: welcome to the glittering, surreal heart of twenty-first-century Russia. It is a world erupting with new money and new power, changing so fast it breaks all sense of reality, home to a form of dictatorshipand#151;far subtler than twentieth-century strainsand#151;that is rapidly rising to challenge the West.
When British producer Peter Pomerantsev plunges into the booming Russian TV industry, he gains access to every nook and corrupt cranny of the country. He is brought to smoky rooms for meetings with propaganda gurus running the nerve-center of the Russian media machine, and visits Siberian mafia-towns and the salons of the international super-rich in London and the US. As the Putin regime becomes more aggressive, Pomerantsev finds himself drawn further into the system.
Dazzling yet piercingly insightful, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible is an unforgettable voyage into a country spinning from decadence into madness.
About the Author
Peter Pomerantsev is an award-winning contributor to the London Review of Books and Newsweek where he has been developing some of the thinking behind this book. His writing has been praised as the most incisive about the country, is translated and republished across the world in such publications as Le Monde Diplomatique, El Pais and Internationale, and has led to regular media and public appearances. Apart from media he has also worked as a consultant for the EU and World Bank on development projects in Russia, dealing directly with federal and regional governments. He lives in England.