Title: Tales of Woe
Product review: Anecdotes from hell. The 20th century is a lot of fun. It takes a lifetime of reading to put together a book of this sort. Part biography, part confession, this novel is an intellectual's delight. Here are all the ghosts of the twentieth century, especially the juicy vignettes from the backrooms of the monsters' lairs. I love the opening between Fanny Kaplan, Lenin's would-be assassin, and Krupskaya, the put-upon wife of the beloved, blood-thirsty communist. The book has few of the literary tricks up its sleeve that one finds these days in so many unreadable works. This is old-school realism, a kind of historical novel of the Truman Capote school of "faction," perhaps something Norman Mailer might of attempted, a literary working over of the encyclopedia. What distinguishes it is its erudition, high irony, and sly playfulness.
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