Depeche Mode - 3rd Edition by Serhiy Zhadan (Paperback)

About the Book

In 1993, tragic turbulence takes over Ukraine in the post-communist spin-off. As if in somnambulism, Soviet war veterans and upstart businessmen listen to an American preacher of whose type there were plenty at the time...

Book Synopsis

In 1993, tragic turbulence takes over Ukraine in the post-communist spin-off. As if in somnambulism, Soviet war veterans and upstart businessmen listen to an American preacher of whose type there were plenty at the time in the post-Soviet territory. In Kharkiv, the young communist headquarters is now an advertising agency, and a youth radio station brings Western music, with Depeche Mode in the lead, into homes of ordinary people. In the middle of this craze three friends, an anti-Semitic Jew Dogg Pavlov, an unfortunate entrepreneur Vasia the Communist and the narrator Zhadan, nineteen years of age and unemployed, seek to find their old pal Sasha Carburetor to tell him that his step-father shot himself dead. Characters confront elements of their reality, and, tainted with traumatic survival fever, embark on a sad, dramatic and a bit grotesque adventure.

Review Quotes

"Despite the (by now far too) familiar tropes and types, and the excessive reliance on excessive alcohol consumption, Depeche Mode stands out among novels of the early post-Soviet transition - going beyond these, as well as offering a few very nice literary flourishes and twists, early evidence of Zhadan's promise as a writer." M.A.Orthofer, the complete review

"More, perhaps, than any other writer from the post-Soviet era, Serhiy Zhadan speaks to this experience of national and personal upheaval... Zhadan gives us a flâneur's perspective on post-Soviet urban life, with its ruined socialist architecture, industrial wastelands, petty crime and violence. The absurdity of the clash of socialist and Western culture is also sharply observed." Uilleam Blacker, The Times Literary Supplement

"Serhiy Zhadan is a poet and novelist whose work has been likened to Rimbaud, Charles Bukowski and Irvine Welsh. Depeche Mode is his debut novel, and it depicts Ukrainian youth during the turbulence of the 1990s. [...] The characters confront elements of their reality and embark on a sad and dramatic adventure around Kharkiv and further afield. " Saffron Swire, Reaction

"In fact, Serhiy is not only a brilliant novelist but also a superb poet who succeeds in blending tradition and modernity in his verse. Kerouac and Skovoroda, Semenko and Ginsberg." Massimiliano Di Pasquale, Eastonline