Gogol’s Disco
Gogol’s Disco by Paavo Matsin, published by Deep Vellum Publishing in May 2020, is a 180-page work that presents a unique narrative set in a parallel or future Estonia. In this story, the language has been outlawed and the native population deported following an invasion by the Russian Tsardom. The resurrection of Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol serves as a catalyst for phantasmagoric events in the town of Viljandi, where a diverse cast of characters navigates the chaos.
Readers will encounter a blend of action, adventure, and elements of the occult and supernatural as four evangelists emerge from a group of Russian-speaking beatniks and bohemians. They strive to create their own subversive Gogol Gospels within the confines of a local insane asylum, all while facing opposition from the enigmatic Murka, an agent of the Tsardom’s secret police. Gogol’s Disco intertwines exuberance and grotesqueness with themes of literary resurrection and dystopia, drawing on influences from magic realism and the works of Bulgakov.
Official synopsis Publisher
In a parallel or future Estonia, whose language has been outlawed and its native population deported after the invasion by the Russian Tsardom, Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol is resurrected, Christ-like, bringing phantasmagoric mayhem to the sleepy town of Viljandi.
By the end of the story, four evangelists will have emerged from the novel’s ragtag cast of Russian- speaking beatniks, bohemians, booksellers, blaggers, and Beatles- maniacs to write their subversive Gogol Gospels in the local insane asylum, despite efforts to thwart them on the part of the mysterious Murka, heroine of a criminal underworld ballad and agent of the Tsardom’s secret police. By turns exuberant, grotesque, erudite, oneiric, hilarious, mystical, psychedelic, and dystopian, Gogol’s Disco tells the parable of a small nation, whose gigantic neighbor quite literally consigns its literature to the latrine, only for it to rise from the dead in a literarily spectacular apocalypse in the best traditions of Bulgakov and magic realism.
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