Winner of the Nabokov Prize, this digressive and subversive novel of a ménage à trois, set against the backdrop of Moscow’s art world, became a sensation when first published in Russia in Youth magazine, prompting endless battles over whether Narbikova was a deft post-modern stylist or mere pornographer. Her prose, dense with allusions to both mass and high culture, features a Sternean irony, switching from the banal to the offensive, turning cliches against themselves in the process.