In this richly imagined and wickedly satirical novel, Aksyonov turns civil surveillance into a national pastime and the socialist myth into an occasion for an unfettered picaresque farce replete with heroism and perfidy, ebullient wordplay, and a cast of characters including Stalin himself.

Set in Moscow in the late 1950s, the story opens in one of the “Seven Sisters,” the landmark skyscrapers for the crème de la crème of Soviet society. This is where a poet, an admiral, a scientist, his wife, and their philandering Komsomol daughter find themselves infiltrated by a group of Titoist dissidents, backed by Tito himself, who are plotting a treacherous coup against the Soviet dictator!

Widely known for his association with the “youth prose” movement in Russian literature, Vassily Aksyonov has established himself as a satirist whose topics include political corruption, the Soviet regime, alienation, adolescent angst, and the cultural differences between East and West. With The Heights of Moscow, Aksyonov’s blending of fact and fiction, frequent quoting of great Russian poets, and excellent grasp of history allow him to present a spellbinding, all-encompassing epic.