From Publishers Weekly
Docx's second novel (after
The Calligrapher) wrings out all the theatrics to be had from unhappy urban-dwelling twins, their sexually voracious father and dead Russian mother. Twins Gabriel and Isabella Glover, both 32 and leading lackluster lives—she at a New York PR firm, he the editor in London of
Self-Help! magazine—see another crack form in their perennially tortured existences when their mother, Maria, who defected to marry their British father, dies alone in St. Petersburg. (Their despised father, Nicholas, meanwhile, dabbles in art, decadence and self-important interior monologues in Paris.) All are unaware of an additional family member: Arkady Artamenkov, their mother's first son, who had been kept afloat by Maria's financial assistance and the guiding hand of his junkie friend, Henry Whey. After the checks stop, Henry hatches a plan to send Arkady to plead for money from the family that doesn't know he exists. Though Docx's prose can get dangerously overheated (Give me the sincerity of nakedness and the honesty of desire, O God, and deliver me from the turgid bourgeoisie and all their favorite phrases), the crushing atmosphere will draw in fans of dark Euro-fiction.
(Mar.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Product Description
Alone in her native St Petersburg, Maria Glover sends an urgent summons to London and New York. Her son and daughter arrive too late to see her, but the end of their mother's life marks the beginning of their own story: one of secrets, strangers, and the ultimate retelling of everything they thought they knew. 'Docx knows that what we want most from a novel are stories into which we can sink our teeth and our hearts. His ability to evoke the atmosphere of a city is almost Dickensian' - "Guardian". 'Full of insight: on the state of Russia, Britain and the US; and on the nature of music, addiction, love and sex. Funny and involving and the characters are often priceless' - "Metro". 'I was amazed at the detail of Docx's St Petersburg, with all its beauty and cruelty, similar to the style of Dostoevsky' - "Financial Times". 'Unforgettable. Not since "What a Carve Up!" has there been such an absorbing indictment of the family' - "Independent on Sunday".