In the chaos of early-1990s Russia, the wife and stepdaughter of a paralyzed veteran conceal the Soviet Unionâs collapse from him in order to keep himâand his pensionâalive until it turns out the tough old man has other plans. Olga Slavnikovaâs The Man Who Couldnât Die tells the story of how two women try to prolong a lifeâand the means and meaning of their own livesâby creating a world that doesnât change, a Soviet Union that never crumbled.
After her stepfatherâs stroke, Marina hangs Brezhnevâs portrait on the wall, edits the Pravda articles read to him, and uses her media connections to cobble together entire newscasts of events that never happened. Meanwhile, her mother, Nina Alexandrovna, can barely navigate the bewildering new world outside, especially in comparison to the blunt reality of her uncommunicative husband. As Marina is caught up in a local election campaign that gets out of hand, Nina discovers that her husband is conspiring as wellâto kill himself and put an end to the charade. Masterfully translated by Marian Schwartz, The Man Who Couldnât Die is a darkly playful vision of the lost Soviet past and the madness of the post-Soviet world that uses Russiaâs modern history as a backdrop for an inquiry into larger metaphysical questions.