"Dell, the narrator of this tragicomic novel, lives in a tiny apartment that used to be a walk-in closet. She also has a sister who's in a coma. When Dell loses her job at a smoothie shop, after throwing a jar of almond butter at a customer, she decides to start live-streaming, asking viewers to fund her sister's life support."
"Between the river's source, entrusted to an order of Orthodox nuns, and its southern delta, where caviar bound for the Kremlin is harvested, the author journeys through a defiant country transformed by war, sanctions, and reinvigorated patriotism. Braiding snapshots of the present with history, Mian depicts a country haunted by threats to its national integrity, where people have come to believe that "questioning their leaders . . . creates social conflict and exposes the country to foreign occupation""
Dell lives in a tiny former walk-in-closet apartment and cares for a sister who is in a coma. After losing a smoothie-shop job for throwing a jar of almond butter at a customer, Dell begins live-streaming and asks viewers to fund her sister's life support. Viral traction follows because of Dell's snarky charisma and willingness to take shocking dares, but anonymous messages threaten to expose a hidden truth. A separate travelogue follows the Volga from source to delta, moving through Orthodox sites and caviar-producing deltas and portraying a country reshaped by war, sanctions, and reinvigorated patriotism.
Read at The New Yorker
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