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PU-239 and Other Russian Fantasies: A Novella and Stories
The acclaimed short story and novella collection by “a virtuoso of the dismal comedy of Soviet life”—and the basis for the HBO film PU-239 ( The New York Times ). A PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist. Ken Kalfus traverses a century of Russian history in tales that range from hair-raising to comic to fabulous. The astonishing title story follows a doomed nuclear power plant worker as he attempts to hawk plutonium in Moscow’s black market. In “Budyonnovsk,” a young man hopes that the takeover of his town by Chechen rebels will somehow save his marriage. "Salt" is an economic fairy tale, featuring kings, princesses, and swiftly melting currencies. Set in the 1920s, “Birobidzhan” is the bittersweet story of a Jewish couple journeying to the Soviet Far East, where they intend to establish the modern world’s first Jewish state. The novella, “Peredelkino,” which closes the book, traces the fortunes of a 1960s literary apparatchik whose romantic intrigues inadvertently become political. Together, these works of fiction capture the famously enigmatic Russian psyche. They display Kalfus’ ability to imagine a variety of believable yet wholly singular characters whose lives percolate against a backdrop of momentous events.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
16 people are currently reading
306 people want to read
About the author
Ken Kalfus
31 books74 followersHe was born in the Bronx, NY and grew up in Plainview, Long Island.
Kalfus started college at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY, but dropped out after the first year. He attended various other universities including the New School for Social Research in Manhattan and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Kalfus started writing at an early age.
Kalfus started college at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY, but dropped out after the first year. He attended various other universities including the New School for Social Research in Manhattan and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Kalfus started writing at an early age.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
August 20, 2013
Personalising the political...
One of the best books of 2013 is Ken Kalfus’ Equilateral, an insightful, subtly humorous and wonderfully written novel in the vein of classic sci-fi. (If you haven’t read it yet, why haven’t you?) I’d never heard of Kalfus before reading it, so am now working my way backwards through his previous stuff…
Kalfus lived in Russia during the period 1994-1998, when his wife was appointed Moscow bureau chief of the Philadelphia Inquirer, allowing him to get to know the country and its people. The result is this collection of six short stories and a novella, all based in the Russia of the USSR era. Overall, he gives us a grey and grim depiction of life under the Soviet regime, but leavened with flashes of humour and a great deal of humanity. His writing has the same spare precision of Equilateral though, perhaps because of the subject matter, with less of the poeticism that was a feature of that book.
The title story, Pu-239, tells of the Soviet nuclear programme, shrouded in secrecy, with little regard for the safety of the workers. A stark tale of the dangers that lurk in an industry that is creaking and broken, Kalfus humanises his story by concentrating on one worker, his loyalty tested to breaking point when he is the victim of an accident in the plant.
Anzhelika shows the life of this 13-year-old living in the time of Stalin and dealing with the sudden return of her father who has been missing, no-one knows where, since the end of the war. We see how she has been indoctrinated to revere, almost worship, Stalin and the regime and how the most human of emotions are corrupted and denied.
Birobidzhan is the story of the setting up of the Jewish Autonomous Region as seen through the lives of Israel, an activist and enthusiast for the project, and Larissa, the woman he hopes will share his journey. This is one of the longer stories, allowing Kalfus to show us the contrast between the hopes of the settlers and the realities of this unwelcoming corner of the USSR, and always the brooding threat of a regime that tolerates no dissent.
Orbit follows Yuri Gagarin on his last evening before he is due to blast off to be the first man in space. We see a man conscious of his own heroism, sure of his destiny. But Kalfus contrasts this with the story of Sergei Korolev, Chief Director of the project – a man who has returned from the horror of the gulags and who understands the price of failure.
Budyonnovsk tells the story of the negotiations between the Chechen separatists and Chernomyrdin during the hospital hostage crisis in 1995. For me, this story didn’t work as well as the others, possibly because it must have been written fairly contemporaneously and Kalfus perhaps didn’t tell us enough about the circumstances, believing his readers would remember them – which sadly I didn’t.
Salt is based on a Russian folk-tale – a young man discovers a salt mountain and exchanges this valuable spice for its weight in gold. Light and entertaining on the surface, the story is an allegorical fable on the subject of wealth-creation and the notional value that humanity gives to otherwise worthless commodities.
The book finishes with the novella, Peredelkino. A story of love and betrayal told against the background of the literary world, Kalfus shows the constraints placed on authors forced to ensure that their work stays within the restrictions placed on all artists under the totalitarian state. Kalfus’ musings on the writing process and thoughts on critical reception occasionally felt as if an autobiographical element must be creeping into this one, and while the story over all is both dark and emotional, there are many flashes of humour here too.
In each of the stories Kalfus personalises the political, creating believable characters struggling to find a way to live under the Soviet system. He doesn’t take the easy option of concentrating on dissidents and rebels; instead, he shows us ordinary people, often supporters of the regime, but living under the constant fear of stepping out of line. Some of the stories worked better for me than others, with Peredelkino and Birobidzhan being the stand-outs. But as a collection, these are insightful and thought-provoking, and Kalfus’ precise language and compelling characterisation make them an absorbing read. Highly recommended.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
One of the best books of 2013 is Ken Kalfus’ Equilateral, an insightful, subtly humorous and wonderfully written novel in the vein of classic sci-fi. (If you haven’t read it yet, why haven’t you?) I’d never heard of Kalfus before reading it, so am now working my way backwards through his previous stuff…
Kalfus lived in Russia during the period 1994-1998, when his wife was appointed Moscow bureau chief of the Philadelphia Inquirer, allowing him to get to know the country and its people. The result is this collection of six short stories and a novella, all based in the Russia of the USSR era. Overall, he gives us a grey and grim depiction of life under the Soviet regime, but leavened with flashes of humour and a great deal of humanity. His writing has the same spare precision of Equilateral though, perhaps because of the subject matter, with less of the poeticism that was a feature of that book.
The title story, Pu-239, tells of the Soviet nuclear programme, shrouded in secrecy, with little regard for the safety of the workers. A stark tale of the dangers that lurk in an industry that is creaking and broken, Kalfus humanises his story by concentrating on one worker, his loyalty tested to breaking point when he is the victim of an accident in the plant.
Anzhelika shows the life of this 13-year-old living in the time of Stalin and dealing with the sudden return of her father who has been missing, no-one knows where, since the end of the war. We see how she has been indoctrinated to revere, almost worship, Stalin and the regime and how the most human of emotions are corrupted and denied.
Birobidzhan is the story of the setting up of the Jewish Autonomous Region as seen through the lives of Israel, an activist and enthusiast for the project, and Larissa, the woman he hopes will share his journey. This is one of the longer stories, allowing Kalfus to show us the contrast between the hopes of the settlers and the realities of this unwelcoming corner of the USSR, and always the brooding threat of a regime that tolerates no dissent.
Orbit follows Yuri Gagarin on his last evening before he is due to blast off to be the first man in space. We see a man conscious of his own heroism, sure of his destiny. But Kalfus contrasts this with the story of Sergei Korolev, Chief Director of the project – a man who has returned from the horror of the gulags and who understands the price of failure.
Budyonnovsk tells the story of the negotiations between the Chechen separatists and Chernomyrdin during the hospital hostage crisis in 1995. For me, this story didn’t work as well as the others, possibly because it must have been written fairly contemporaneously and Kalfus perhaps didn’t tell us enough about the circumstances, believing his readers would remember them – which sadly I didn’t.
Salt is based on a Russian folk-tale – a young man discovers a salt mountain and exchanges this valuable spice for its weight in gold. Light and entertaining on the surface, the story is an allegorical fable on the subject of wealth-creation and the notional value that humanity gives to otherwise worthless commodities.
The book finishes with the novella, Peredelkino. A story of love and betrayal told against the background of the literary world, Kalfus shows the constraints placed on authors forced to ensure that their work stays within the restrictions placed on all artists under the totalitarian state. Kalfus’ musings on the writing process and thoughts on critical reception occasionally felt as if an autobiographical element must be creeping into this one, and while the story over all is both dark and emotional, there are many flashes of humour here too.
In each of the stories Kalfus personalises the political, creating believable characters struggling to find a way to live under the Soviet system. He doesn’t take the easy option of concentrating on dissidents and rebels; instead, he shows us ordinary people, often supporters of the regime, but living under the constant fear of stepping out of line. Some of the stories worked better for me than others, with Peredelkino and Birobidzhan being the stand-outs. But as a collection, these are insightful and thought-provoking, and Kalfus’ precise language and compelling characterisation make them an absorbing read. Highly recommended.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
December 26, 2014
Wise, dark marvelous short stories set in Russia, in various political climates and eras from the Stalinist through the collapse of the Soviet Union and into the capitalist era.
The title story, PU-238 is an absolute gut punch of a tale and sets the tone for the collection. As an employee of a patched-together nuclear power plant faces death following a malfunction (echoes of Chernobyl) he decides to turn to the new 'marketplace' for a desperate compensation. After reading this first story, you know nothing is going to turn out “right” in these stories except by accident.
I personally loved the theorem of the first one—Ignorance plus Fatalism plus Desperation equals the most terrible, bleakest humor you ever saw--much like another favorite, The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov. What’s especially nice about this collection is the variety of time periods in Russian history they’re set in--the commonality within the differences, so the first story is set in the economically disastrous post-Soviet period like the Wild West, and the second, Anzhelika 13, is Stalin era Soviet.
What I liked particularly about that second story, and some of the others, was a certain kind of fatalism about life, and where it comes from, and but also secret repositories of memory —“No one spoke of Aunt Lyuda again. Anzhelika could hardly remember her. People were easily forgotten: like dreams their faces were lost in the rush of daylight…”
Kalfus doesn’t turn his head from the dark side of human nature. How envy turns neighbor against neighbor, especially in times of scarcity, not denying these basic passions but accepting them as the bass note against which other emotions take place. For example, here's the fury of Anzhelika’s father, smelling the neighbor’s better dinner in the collective apartment: “Her parents didn’t speak, they didn’t even look at each other as their nostril-hairs twitched around the vapors emitted by Aunt Olya’s cutlets. Their anger intensified and their silence deepened.”
In the first story, when the rogue nuclear engineer tries to explain to the kid black marketeer, ‘Shiv,’ what plutonium is, we see it again: “Shiv wasn’t listening; he didn’t like being lectured and he especially didn’t like to be told to read things, even identity papers. The world was full of men who new more than Shiv did, and he hated each of them.” This could well speak for any country, the very real hatred of the uneducated for the educated—something that we forget at our peril.
Hatred in many firms simmers through this book, envy, fatalism and meaningless terrible turns of events.
My favorite story is the long one at the end, “Peredelkino”, named for the very famous dacha village of the Soviet era, where Pasternak lived, and Akhmatova was given a summer home at the end of her life. The story lovingly depicts the struggle of writers to live within the false structure of the Soviet ‘writers union’—to survive physically and as artists, the push and pull of that. I especially enjoyed the wife of the protagonist of that story, Lydia, who just wants to live in isolation out at the dacha and read. Good readers are rare in fiction, oddly enough. I loved her discussions with her writer husband. Here’s one about a novel he wrote about submarine sailors, for which he was criticized about its inaccuracies: Lydia says, “To criticize a novel for getting details of a setting wrong is like criticizing a dream for not being true to life.”
But this collection is a dream which gets all the details right, down to the blackened ice and the ‘fossilized print of a truck tire’ to the envy and cowardice and tiny braveries in human life, and in the particulars of Russia.
The title story, PU-238 is an absolute gut punch of a tale and sets the tone for the collection. As an employee of a patched-together nuclear power plant faces death following a malfunction (echoes of Chernobyl) he decides to turn to the new 'marketplace' for a desperate compensation. After reading this first story, you know nothing is going to turn out “right” in these stories except by accident.
I personally loved the theorem of the first one—Ignorance plus Fatalism plus Desperation equals the most terrible, bleakest humor you ever saw--much like another favorite, The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov. What’s especially nice about this collection is the variety of time periods in Russian history they’re set in--the commonality within the differences, so the first story is set in the economically disastrous post-Soviet period like the Wild West, and the second, Anzhelika 13, is Stalin era Soviet.
What I liked particularly about that second story, and some of the others, was a certain kind of fatalism about life, and where it comes from, and but also secret repositories of memory —“No one spoke of Aunt Lyuda again. Anzhelika could hardly remember her. People were easily forgotten: like dreams their faces were lost in the rush of daylight…”
Kalfus doesn’t turn his head from the dark side of human nature. How envy turns neighbor against neighbor, especially in times of scarcity, not denying these basic passions but accepting them as the bass note against which other emotions take place. For example, here's the fury of Anzhelika’s father, smelling the neighbor’s better dinner in the collective apartment: “Her parents didn’t speak, they didn’t even look at each other as their nostril-hairs twitched around the vapors emitted by Aunt Olya’s cutlets. Their anger intensified and their silence deepened.”
In the first story, when the rogue nuclear engineer tries to explain to the kid black marketeer, ‘Shiv,’ what plutonium is, we see it again: “Shiv wasn’t listening; he didn’t like being lectured and he especially didn’t like to be told to read things, even identity papers. The world was full of men who new more than Shiv did, and he hated each of them.” This could well speak for any country, the very real hatred of the uneducated for the educated—something that we forget at our peril.
Hatred in many firms simmers through this book, envy, fatalism and meaningless terrible turns of events.
My favorite story is the long one at the end, “Peredelkino”, named for the very famous dacha village of the Soviet era, where Pasternak lived, and Akhmatova was given a summer home at the end of her life. The story lovingly depicts the struggle of writers to live within the false structure of the Soviet ‘writers union’—to survive physically and as artists, the push and pull of that. I especially enjoyed the wife of the protagonist of that story, Lydia, who just wants to live in isolation out at the dacha and read. Good readers are rare in fiction, oddly enough. I loved her discussions with her writer husband. Here’s one about a novel he wrote about submarine sailors, for which he was criticized about its inaccuracies: Lydia says, “To criticize a novel for getting details of a setting wrong is like criticizing a dream for not being true to life.”
But this collection is a dream which gets all the details right, down to the blackened ice and the ‘fossilized print of a truck tire’ to the envy and cowardice and tiny braveries in human life, and in the particulars of Russia.
December 20, 2007
These are dark gritty stories of Russia's past, from pre-WWII through the cold war and into post Perostroika. They evoke a sense of familiarity of what we conventionally think of as an oppressive Soviet state, but these stories also let us imagine what it might be like to be entirely human during those times, and how one might have been inspired by the ideals of socialism, representing a notion of human development which is lost upon the present-day American mind.
April 12, 2023
I enjoyed reading this one! It’s tough for “foreign” writers to write from a “Russian” perspective. Most of the time, the books fall flat and it’s clear that while the author may be fascinated with the country, they simply didn’t have time or opportunity to go deeper.
Kalfus’s “fairytales” are much more nuanced and multidimensional than works from this sub-genre usually offer. The namesake short story about nuclear weapons is a standout. Almost feels Coen-esque. “Salt” is wonderfully quirky and captivating. The novella seemed to meander a bit. I wanted to know more about the protagonist’s wife and the writer from Kaluga, but they never came into focus. Stakes felt low, despite the serious situations.
Kalfus’s “fairytales” are much more nuanced and multidimensional than works from this sub-genre usually offer. The namesake short story about nuclear weapons is a standout. Almost feels Coen-esque. “Salt” is wonderfully quirky and captivating. The novella seemed to meander a bit. I wanted to know more about the protagonist’s wife and the writer from Kaluga, but they never came into focus. Stakes felt low, despite the serious situations.
February 17, 2015
The real reward of this collection is the novella at the end. This longer form allows Kalfus to fully explore the nature of an individual in Soviet society. While the preceding stories were written with masterful prose, they tended to offer a more surface-level look at the characters and the world they inhabit. Certainly, the whole books is full of great research and provides interesting details on the Soviet Union, and several of the stories resonate beyond the page.
November 18, 2007
There are some very Russian moments that were captured quite well by the author. He gives real life (as in grit, reality) to these vague, historic notions. The stories range in quality, but I would recommend them as a whole.
May 23, 2016
I see why critics like Kalfus. Plotting is unique and large on taking chances and his wordmanship is good. And yet, this work does not click with me. I'll assume the fault but the situation stands.
October 24, 2019
I had high hopes for this collection, but it ended up being only okay. Ken Kalfus spent four years in Russia in the 90s and decided to write some short stories with a Soviet theme. There are stories about Stalin, communists, secret nuclear research facilities, and kosmonauts. I can't say whether or not he succeeded in portraying Soviet life believably, but I can say that it's the only distinguishing feature in an otherwise mediocre book.
The first story, "Pu-239," is a tale of nuclear weapons, crime, the black market, and, ultimately, stupidity. Although the ending is somewhat predictable, I enjoyed the setting, characters, and dark humour. And it got me excited to read the rest of the collection! Sadly, I found most of the other stories to be unexciting and rather pointless, except to offer a glimpse into Soviet life and maybe offer some subtle criticism of the government. I liked the irony in "Birobdizhan"—Russian Jews envision a communist paradise, except they all turn out to be bougies with no ability to work the land—but the story plodded along far too slowly. I also enjoyed the fable "Salt" about a Russian merchant who trades salt for gold and falsely expects his greed to be rewarded. The other three stories and the novella are subpar; pacing is Kalfus's obvious weakness, but he also isn't very good at building characters or writing descriptively. Some of his ideas are decent but for the most part they aren't executed well.
The first story, "Pu-239," is a tale of nuclear weapons, crime, the black market, and, ultimately, stupidity. Although the ending is somewhat predictable, I enjoyed the setting, characters, and dark humour. And it got me excited to read the rest of the collection! Sadly, I found most of the other stories to be unexciting and rather pointless, except to offer a glimpse into Soviet life and maybe offer some subtle criticism of the government. I liked the irony in "Birobdizhan"—Russian Jews envision a communist paradise, except they all turn out to be bougies with no ability to work the land—but the story plodded along far too slowly. I also enjoyed the fable "Salt" about a Russian merchant who trades salt for gold and falsely expects his greed to be rewarded. The other three stories and the novella are subpar; pacing is Kalfus's obvious weakness, but he also isn't very good at building characters or writing descriptively. Some of his ideas are decent but for the most part they aren't executed well.
July 4, 2018
A mixed bag. Kalfus is an American who spent some time living in Russia and the writes these Soviet-era tales like a native (a compliment). The title story is wonderful and unnerving, but the later ones are all over the place. Some good, some meh. Definitely a worthwhile read, however
February 5, 2022
The tall, dusky musician burrowed into the music like a feral animal, and his colleagues followed.
January 22, 2024
Scritto molto bene e interessante per le riflessioni sulla società sovietica, ma personalmente l'ho trovato faticoso e, a tratti, noioso.
February 25, 2017
Though written with a clear love of language and experimental expression, "Pu-239" doesn't have a permanent place on my table. While the stories are all moving (in a profoundly Russian, heart-breaking way), I had trouble connecting with them. I greatly admire Kalfus' bold use of different narrative styles; he ranges from plain, fable-like prose to a narrative put together by fractals of prose poetry. He pulls each of them off rather well, but there is a distance between the reader and the storyteller that I could not overcome.
November 6, 2016
the titular story was very good, though admittedly i think i preferred the movie more. various other stories within the book were even better, and as usual with collections of short stories there were some i loved and really connected with and others i felt a bit ambivalent about. the novella at the end was a bit disappointing, i felt, and lacking in character development. a few stories i felt this is where kalfus fell short; his attention to detail and journalistic approach to his reach is spot-on but introducing the reader properly to some of the characters that live in his head or otherwise is where he could stand to improve. he may know these people so intimately but he sometimes fails to remember that the reader does not. otherwise i very much enjoyed this book and many of the stories, often bordering on historical fiction, certainly kept me engaged.
June 14, 2021
A real mixed bag of short stories and a novella. One story was excellent, several were good and a couple were mediocre. By far the best story in the book was the title story Pu-239. It is about a technician who works in a nuclear reactor plant who attempts to sell some enriched plutonium on the black market. Probably the next best story was Birobidzhan about a small group of Jews who travel across Russia to help establish a Jewish homeland in lower Siberia (a place that actually exists that I had never heard of before).
December 27, 2007
I read the title story after hearing the HBO (or was it Showtime) movie was really good. The story is pretty good and ends with a great moment. I really like Kalfus's writing, so I'll be sure to finish this off in the near future.
April 5, 2008
a few great short stories, the others were just ok. not much on character development. Kalfus does a good job of capturing the Russian experience without overblowing his description of the country, cities, or people.
June 15, 2013
Ignore the sadly non parodic Onion review that refers to short stories as a genre and states that Kalfus "lacks oomph." I havent been this absorbed all year. Birobidzhan might well be a perfect story.
Want to read
June 8, 2009Ken Kalfus is fantastic. This collection is completely absorbing. His word choices, rhythms, and structures are perfect. He is an absolute delight to read.
March 2, 2017
Tecnicamente questa raccolta è buona, però non mi è piaciuta molto, ho trovato i racconti parecchio noiosi, eccetto Peredelkino e Birobidzan.
August 2, 2012
Although some stories work better than others, they are at least interesting, and most of the time fascinating. I intend to read more of Kalfus' work.
Read
March 13, 2013Pushcart Prize Recipient
Finalist, PEN/Faulkner Award
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
Village Voice Writer on the Verge Award
Finalist, PEN/Faulkner Award
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
Village Voice Writer on the Verge Award
January 29, 2016
Interesting short stories (and one novella) set in a Soviet milieu. Ken Kalfus is a great writer.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews