Good Citizens Need Not Fear

'Creative, poignant and darkly hilarious, Good Citizens Need Not Fear is full of relevant questions about resistance, corruption and maintaining dignity against the dehumanizing power of the State. This is an outstanding first book' Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See

A bureaucratic glitch omits an entire building, along with its residents, from municipal records. So begins Maria Reva's ingeniously intertwined stories that span the chaotic years leading up to and immediately following the fall of the Soviet Union. As the benighted denizens of 1933 Ivansk Street weather the official neglect of the authorities, they devise cunning ways to survive.

An agoraphobic recluse makes money by mapping the vinyl grooves of illegal Western records onto stolen X-rays; a delusional secret service agent becomes convinced he's being covertly recruited to guard Lenin's tomb; and weaving the narratives together is chameleon-like Zaya, a cleft-lipped orphan who reappears as a Miss USSR beauty-contest crasher and later as a sadist for hire.

Brilliant, bitingly funny and at times surreal, Good Citizens Need Not Fear moves from moments of intense paranoia to surprising tenderness, exploring what it is to be an individual amid the rolling forces of history.

'The funniest, most politically astute book I've read in years. Reva's pitch-perfect tone - especially at that comic junction where the absurdity of a system rigged to control human being collides with actual humans - is bang-on brilliant' Miriam Toews, author of Women Talking

'Luminous. With humour and real emotion, these stories speak of the heaviness of totalitarian systems and show how the light of our humanity still shines through. Terrific stuff' Yann Martel, author ofLife of Pi

[insert author photo]
www.mariareva.ca
Twitter: @_mariareva