A review by pholz
The Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories by Anthony Marra

4.0

This is an excellent collection of interlinked short stories set in the former USSR and Chechnya. It provides intriguing snapshots into the lives of people who erased subversives from photographs, informed on friends and family, toiled in nickel mines in the Arctic, fought in the wars against Chechnya, and used their lack of limbs to solicit money as they crawled through the train carriages of the St. Petersburg Metro. All the protagonists' stories are connected to each other with the actions of one having unforeseen consequences for the lives of others. A very thought provoking book looking at the lives of people who live in worlds which are so different to my own.