Rubble of Rubles

Josip Novakovich

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From Man Booker International Prize finalist Josip Novakovich comes a satiric novel with teeth--a tale of Russia in the early aughts, perfect for fans of Dostoevsky and Gary Shteyngart.

In this picaresque novel set in the early 2000s, David, an investment banker with Eastern European roots, goes bankrupt from the Enron fiasco, and moves to Russia to do some soul-searching. In the shadow of the Khazan cathedral, he's arrested for the murder of two Georgian wine-importers. David is imprisoned at Kresty, bewildered and alone. One day, Putin himself visits, with a modest proposal for David: to travel to Georgia and slip plutonium into the president's wine. This is the price of freedom: to assassinate a president.

Told with Josip Novakovich's signature skill and satiric wit, Rubble of Rubles delves into the absurdity and menace of totalitarianism. At the crossroads of literary fiction, satire, and crime, this is a novel for modern fans of Notes from Underground and Absurdistan.

Book Details

Publisher: Dzanc Books
Publish Date: Dec 13rd, 2022
Pages: 200
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 8.40in - 5.40in - 0.70in - 0.57lb
EAN: 9781950539642
Categories: • Absurdist• World Literature - Russia - General• Satire

About the Author

Novakovich, Josip: -

Josip Novakovich emigrated
from Croatia to the United States at the age of 20. He has published a dozen
books, including a novel, April Fool's Day (in ten languages), five
story collections (Infidelities, Yolk, Salvation and Other Disasters,
Heritage of Smoke, and Tumbleweed) and three collections of
narrative essays as well as two books of practical criticism. His novel, Rubble
of Rubles, is scheduled for publication in 2022. His work was anthologized
in Best American Poetry, the Pushcart Prize and O. Henry Prize Stories. He has
received the Whiting Writer's Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, the Ingram
Merrill Award and an American Book Award, and in 2013 he was a Man Booker
International Award finalist. He has taught at Penn State, University of
Cincinnati, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and now at Concordia University in
Montreal.

Praise for this book

"Throughout the madcap plotting, a
pervasive sense of menace never dissipates. An international comedy of errors
that ventures to knowingly bleak places." --Kirkus starred review

"In vertiginous scenes that evoke Kafka,
Dostoyevsky, and Alice in Wonderland, the police and prison officials
subject David to extortion, drugging, and interrogation, and even Putin himself
gets a cartoonish and nightmarish cameo. Not only is this sickeningly surreal,
it's a hell of a ride." --Publishers Weekly starred review

"Josip Novakovich's latest novel is a tour de
force that exposes the complete corruption of the Russian police and legal
system under Putin. David Dvornik is an insomniac, former investment banker,
Russophile, amateur historian, and ex graduate student from Yale, who uses
sarcasm and farce to describe the absurdity of his daily life in Saint
Petersburg. Novakovich turns the idea of Crime and Punishment on
its head. Rather than the inevitable capture of the guilty, we see the
inevitable punishment of the innocent."

--Josh Barkan, author of Mexico:
Stories

"Crime and the lack of punishment--Josip Novakovich
conjures up a picture of Saint Petersburg that would terrify Dostoevsky." --Tibor
Fischer, author of Under the Frog

"Rubble of Rubbles shows Josip Novakovich at his best. I know of no other writer
who knows how to ridicule the ridiculous and find meaning in the seemingly
meaningless. This is a comic novel with serious content, rich in dark humor and
startling cultural insights." --Jim Heynen, author of The One-Room
Schoolhouse

"This novel took hold of me from
the beginning and never let go. Kafkaesque for the first two-thirds, and then
something else. I am not sure what: maybe a bit of the Wizard of Oz, and a bit
Hitchcock, with a happy ending. I shall never think of Russia the same way, or
of Georgian wine. A timely book filled with humor and twists and turns." --Robert
Appelbaum, author of Terrorism Before the Letter: Mythography and Political
Violence in England, Scotland, and France 1559-1642

"In a thrilling mix of an
adventure novel and satire, Novakovich provides us with a fresh glimpse into
that horrifying and mysterious Russian soul. So relevant that it's scary!" --Lara Vapnyar, author of Divide
Me By Zero

"Josip Novakovich's narrative
style--powerfully direct, crisply
precise, bluntly confident without arrogance--is instantly recognizable and entirely sui generis. No single
sentence goes to waste in his texts, no word a throwaway one. His prose
resonates with distant rhythms of faraway histories. He is one of the
preeminent storytellers of our time