Let's Put the Future Behind Us (Jack Womack) [Paperback]

Jack Womack (Author)

Book Description

Series: Jack Womack | Publication Date: March 21, 1997

Ex-bureaucrat-turned-successful Moscow businessman Max Borodin confronts the trials and tribulations of post-Soviet Russia as he copes with a nagging wife, exhausting mistress, troublesome brother, and the Russian mafia. By the author of Random Acts of Senseless Violence. Tour.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In today's Russia, everyone's out for profit?especially Max Borodin, the hero of Womack's entertaining but uneven new thriller (after Random Acts of Senseless Violence, 1994). By equal turns officious and wryly humorous, Max, a former bureaucrat, lends money and forges documents through an organization called the Universal Manufacturing Company. But others want to share the profits, including a prominent Russian demagogue and several unsavory Georgian mafiosi. Max has a caring wife, Tanya, and a stunningly beautiful mistress to distract him?until his mistress's husband involves Max in a business deal that runs him afoul of both the head of the mafia and an aspiring nationalist politician. The husband is killed, Tanya is kidnapped and it's up to Max to straighten it all out?and to try to turn a profit at the same time. The engaging plot features several shoot-outs, safe crackings and stickups. Near the end, however, the pieces drop too easily into place. But Max is a charismatic narrator. Though his social criticisms lack depth, his comic observations of his fellow profiteers are winning, and he leads the reader merrily toward his goal of reaping the benefits of capitalism. As the title says, Womack is leaving behind his string of near-future thrillers here: no problem.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

The author of the Elvis-as-Messiah Elvissey (1993) and various dystopias of a near-future Manhattan (Random Acts of Senseless Violence, 1994, etc.) stays in the present in his latest--a portrait of Russia devouring itself in a frenzy of primitive capitalism. Imagine 1984 as told by Alex of A Clockwork Orange. Our unheroic narrator, Max Borodin, is a likable, rather elegant counterfeiter: not of rubles or dollars, but of history. For instance, his corporation produces irrefutable evidence that the KGB's attempts to brainwash Oswald were foiled by the CIA--and the precise opposite, depending on which American scholar is in the market. Max has a feisty young mistress who's married to his sometime business partner, and an entrepreneurial-minded wife who nags him but retains enough energy to negotiate the corruptions and decay of Moscow, where nothing can be accomplished without a bribe and everything's for sale. Max, a clever dog in this dog-eat-dog society, is a happy man, so much so that he pragmatically wants to put the future as envisioned by reformists behind; it simply won't work, he thinks. But trouble's on the horizon. There's Max's feckless brother, who tries to involve him in a theme park called Sovietland that will invoke nostalgia for the gulag and in which American tourists will be spirited away for interrogation by park employees posing as secret police. There's a powerful mafia trying to muscle in on Max's sweet operation. Finally, there's a sentimental, paranoid, right-wing politician who seems modeled on Vladimir Zhirinovsky; he has the kind of quirky vision that might get clever fellows such as Max killed. Womack succeeds mightily with his gleeful, sly black humor and with inspired atmospherics, such as an aside on poshlaia, the Russian variety of kitsch. If you're heading to Moscow, take this instead of Fodor's. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1st Pbk. Ed edition (March 21, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080213503X
• ISBN-13: 978-0802135032
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,855,538 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Novel About Post-Soviet Russia That I've Read, October 30, 2001

By 

John Kwok (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Let's Put the Future Behind Us (Jack Womack) (Paperback)

Jack Womack returns to the present in his sly, humorous tale set in contemporary Russia. Only a writer of Womack's prodigious literary gifts could pull off a great novel about Russia that isn't written by a native. He's done an excellent job examining both the business and political elites of Boris Yeltsin's Russia; every word sounds as though it could be written by a distinguished Russian author. His dense, descriptive prose runs wild through this well written tale of business intrigue and corruption, taking us on a mesmerizing literary joy ride laced with ample doses of black humor. At times I found the passages so funny that I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. "Let's Put The Future Behind Us" is yet another excellent novel by this underrated writer; one who deserves a broad readership beyond science fiction fandom.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From One of the Most Underrated American Authors, March 31, 2004

By 

Real Name "argo_navis" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Let's Put the Future Behind Us (Hardcover)

Womack's writing is incredibly similiar to Kurt Vonnegut Jr., but unlike Vonnegut, he is able to change the written voice seemlessly. The novel itself doesn't resemble Russian literature, or more accurately it doesn't resemble Russian literature that has been translated into English. Any Lit major will tell you that the majority of Russian novels translated do no justice for the writing. However, Womack's voice is believable without the trite and cliche signifiers American writers use to create a post-Communist scenario.

Although the writing style is far off, the character stylization and interaction is very similiar to Irvine Welsh. Each character symbolizes a much greater question in the protaganist's purpose as opposed to representing a well-rounded life simply interacting as is typical of Western existentialism. The subtle traits of the charcters draw the reader in through introspective comparison in an understated technique that is really what makes this style so enjoyable to read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jack Womack-- atemporally omnipresent god!, March 23, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Let's Put the Future Behind Us (Jack Womack) (Paperback)

The juxtaposition of the apocalyptic events that took place in Russia during the summer of 1997 when I read this book, and the happenings described in the book itself were so weirdly intense. Let me see past the bourgoise pretense to the horror that was such an part of that time.