Written six years ago, and now vigorously translated by Jeffrey Green, the Israeli writer's novel is a disquieting mix of apocalyptic and quotidian, incongruous career jealousies in a time of national blood-letting.
Thomas is in his mid-30s, a Berlin market researcher and director of a major company's Dept of German Consumer Psychology. Twenty-year-old Sasha is a fearsomely ambitious fringe member of Leningrad's brawling literary circle. Genuinely brawling: one author has achieved notoriety for head-butting a hostile critic. Well, it's part of the job.
So we have two focused cosmopolitans, with clear eyes and clear futures. Alas, it's 1938, and nothing will remain clear much longer.
Thomas watches the SS swaggering down streets, beating up Jews, blowing up buildings. Friends avoid or sneer at him. Sasha, in the years after collectivisation has killed or displaced millions, knows that people disappear, acquaintances warp into informers, closed cars - "black crows" - cross the city at night.
Things crumble apart. Both protagonists find themselves living compromised lives in a world where morality is increasingly perverted. Thomas is shunted to Warsaw, where he applies his marketing skills to double-dealing with the Russians, and writing manifestoes titled The Model of the Polish People ... of the Belorussian People. They're actually justifications for genocide. Sasha, working among prisoners forced to dig canals with their hands, edits confessions for the NKVD.
