The Goose Fritz

Masterly ... Readers get a palpable sense of history's weight and also of its loss ... Another inspiring Lebedev work. --Library Journal Fascinating ... An evocative excursion across more than a century, The Goose Fritz provokes consideration of national identity and the role it plays in sustaining an individual. --Foreword Reviews I met Sergei Lebedev ... There was something indomitable about him that made me think about an animal that won't let go of something when it gets its teeth into it. Lebedev's books dealt with history -- it lay like a shadow over everything he wrote -- and the fact that its presence was so powerful suggested that the conflicts and tensions inherent in it were still unresolved, still had a bearing on Russian society in obscure yet palpable ways. --Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New York Times Magazine An overwhelming historical and literary panorama. --Frankfurter Rundschau Focuses on the hatred of outsiders, the cruel relief strategies of a frightened society ... An uncompromising critic of the Russian government ... Lebedev sees the mounting persecution of a minority not only as a consequence but almost as an inherent condition of totalitarianism. --S ddeutsche Zeitung The hero of the novel, Kirill, enters a new world where he is confronted with shocking knowledge. It's almost as if alongside the laws of physics there is also the enigmatic force of history, the gravitation of the living past ... Lebedev strives to give expression to the unspeakable, to write about the violence, the war and the terror of Russia's recent past. Lebedev tells the story in lush and melancholy verbal imagery. --Wiener Zeitung