Monster: Oil on Canvas

"Marvelously original. . . . Zlotsky has done for conjoined twins what Günter Grass did for midgets in The Tin Drum. . . . A weirdly hilarious Russian fairytale composed with the comedic zeal of Gogol and the rhetorical brilliance of Nabokov."--Lee Siegel, author of Love in a Dead Language

"Pure joy in language. . . . Nabokov's Pale Fire mated with Finnegan's Wake." --Michael Drout, PhD, language scholar

Meet Alex and Alex, as compelling a Russian portrait as the two sides of Raskolnikov. He is--or they are--a dark-caped anti-hero, conjoined twins stalking, counterfeiting, fleeing the iron curtain, delightfully innocent, seeking what everyone seeks: love, hope, and redemption.