Vasily Krymov is a first-generation Russian immigrant living in Youngstown, Ohio. He drinks coffee at the Waffle House. He drinks rum in seedy strip clubs. He washes dishes at a steakhouse for minimum wage. Through all of it, he thinks of suicide, envisioning grand escapes from his own personal hell.

When he discovers a pill bottle full of Oxycontin in the restroom of a bar, Vasily thinks he has found his escape. He and his best friend devise a plant to sell the pills to raise enough money to head out west and escape the squalid streets of Youngstown forever. But for a man like Vasily, escaping one hell only means finding another.

A bleak, comedic masterpiece of down-and-outers in decaying America, The Insurgent is Noah Cicero at his minimalistic best. The Collected Works of Noah Cicero Vol. 2 also features three of Noah Cicero's most acclaimed short stories: "Two Old Lovers Bring Out Their Guns," "Visiting My Sister," and "Two Hard Workers."