My Life as a Russian Novel

Set in Paris and Kotelnich, a small post-Soviet town, My Life as a Russian Novel traces Carrere's pursuit of two consuming obsessions: the disappearance of his Russian grandfather amid suspicions that he was a Nazi collaborator in the Second World War; and his erotic fascination with a woman he loves but cannot keep from destroying. In elegant and impassioned prose, Carrere weaves the strands of his story into a travelogue of a journey inward, grappling with his tortured psyche. Road trip, confession, and erotic tour de force, this fearless reckoning illuminates the schemes we devise to evade ourselves, and the price paid for real self-understanding.