title: Stalin's Barber: A Novel
author:  Paul M. Levitt 
description: <span><span style="font-style:italic;">Stalin's Barber</span><span> is all that the great historical novels used to beepic in scope, with powerful characterizations, visceral action, and a blazingly intelligent authorial point of view. Here we meetand knowthe chief players in the extraordinary centrifuge that was Stalin's Soviet Union. The culture is revealed and flayed; the lives are displayed and understoodthis is grand writing, in the sense of grand opera, from a man who is already a master playwright, and now deserves to be a world figure. </span></span> (Frank Delaney, author of the New York Times bestselling Ireland: A Novel)<br /><br /><span><span>A vivid, imaginative story rich in detailed characterisation which takes the reader on a dark journey laced with black humour into the heart of the USSR at the height of Stalins power. Levitt explores a terrifying world of lies, deceit, and half truths; a world of party hacks, informers, and secret police; a world where an innocent phrase, misplaced joke, or misinterpreted glance leads to imprisonment, deportation, torture, and murder. Against all the odds, the central character, a Jewish barber, retains his spirit of independence and dreams of freedom for himself and his extended family, all of whom suffer at the hands of the State. However, when he is given the job of Stalins barber, he seems doomed to certain death. Every time he is summoned, he has to shave Stalin. But who is the man he shavesis it really The Beloved Leader or a double? A disturbing, highly readable insight into the nightmare world of the Soviet state.</span></span> (Martin Jenkins, former chief producer, British Broadcasting Corporation (Drama) and founding artistic director of the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool)<br /><br /><span><span><span>Men will tell their barber things they wouldn't tell their wives, and Stalin was no exception. In a novel as tantalizingly broad as the steppe and a plot as treacherous as the taiga, Paul M. Levitt penetrates to the Soviet heart of darkness. He weaves his tale around a question as dangerous as the razor wielded by the Great Leader's talented barberwhat secrets do these two men share and who, in the end, really holds in his hands the power to change history? <br /><br /><br /></span></span></span> (Peter Kracht, University of Pittsburgh Press)<br /><br /><span><span><span>Barbers are traditionally also bloodletters. The twentieth century has had some spectacular meetings between haircutters and tyrantsCharlie Chaplin's being the most famousbut here, the field of operations is even wider: from southeastern Europe to starving villages in Russia to doubles in the Kremlin. And just when you think any of it might be real, you turn a corner and meet Nikolai Gogol. A surreal ride.</span></span><br /><br /></span> (Caryl Emerson, Princeton University)<br /><br /><span style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span>[</span><span style="font-style:italic;">Stalins Barber </span><span>is] beautifully written in an effortless prose that is erudite without pretension. I admire it and envy it.</span></span> (Sir Arnold Wesker, playwright, playwright and author)<br /><br /><span><span><span>Levitt is ambitiously epic. . . . With equal parts comedy and tragedy, Levitt vividly illustrates the darkly humorous experience of life in a totalitarian state, where no one can be trusted and the law is removed from reason. . . . The novel soars when Levitt brings [all of] the strands together in the second half.</span></span><br /><br /></span> (<i>Publishers Weekly</i>)<br /><br /><span><span><span>This fascinating novel is easy to admire . . . [it] captures [the] horror [of Stalins 1930s Russia] and yet maintains an undercurrent of absurdist humor. . . . Levitts powerful narrative variously suggests Chaplins </span><span style="font-style:italic;">Great Dictator</span><span>, Orwells </span><span style="font-style:italic;">Nineteen Eighty-Four</span><span>, Voltaires </span><span style="font-style:italic;">Candide</span><span>, Hellers </span><span style="font-style:italic;">Catch-22</span><span> and Brechts </span><span style="font-style:italic;">Mother Courage</span><span>, but remains an entirely original, entirely remarkable work of the imagination.</span></span><br /><br /></span> (<i>The Washington Post</i>)<br /><br /><span><span>Lets just leave it that this is tale well-told (no surprise, the author is a playwright), full of philosophy and surreal humor, excellent characters, and gripping action, to say nothing of some good history. That the protagonist is a barber offers an exceedingly intimate view of things we might previously have thought to be rather grand scale.</span></span> (<i>Russian Life</i>)<br /><br /><span><span>While </span><span style="font-style:italic;">Stalins Barber</span><span> serves as an interesting work of fiction, its real value is as a humanized portrayal of history that draws family members and friendships from what might otherwise be an impersonal ledger of atrocities. Stalins rule was so brutal and the statistics about his crimes are so vast that telling the story of an individual man among the millions who suffered can be a difficult feat. Paul M. Levitt does it successfully.</span></span> (<i>Philosophy of Shaving</i>)
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  Stalin’s Barber
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Stalin’s
  
  
  
  
  
  Barber
  
  
  
  
  
  A Novel
  
  
  
  
  
  Paul M. Levitt
  
  
  
  
  
  TAYLOR TRADE PUBLISHING
  
  
  
  
  
  Lanham • New York • Boulder • Toronto • Plymouth, UK
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Published by Taylor Trade Publishing
  
  
  
  
  
  An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
  
  
  
  
  
  4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
  
  
  
  
  
  www.rowman.com
  
  
  
  
  
  10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom
  
  
  
  
  
  Distributed by National Book Network
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright © 2012 by Paul M. Levitt
  
  
  
  
  
  The poem Stalin’s Mustache copyright 2004 by Ioanna Warwick.
  
  
  
  
  
  Reprinted by permission of the author. All rights reserved.
  
  
  
  
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
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  reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
  
  
  
  
  
  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
  
  
  
  
  
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