Average Life Expectancy

Maxim Semelyak seemed to be a music critic for "Afisha", the founding father of "Prime Russian Magazine", and the editor-in-chief of "Men's Health" – and had never been an evangelist of "autofiction". Nevertheless, the hero of his first novel is as reliable as the entire civilian fleet narrator: identical to the author of the 2008 model. A narcissistic misanthrope, he digs a grave at Vagan'kovskoe and, surrounding himself with a retinue of eccentric beings, pretends to be the grandson of Zoshchenko, studies martial arts, practices peaceful barbarism, trades last year's snow, immerses himself in everyday phenomenology, flounders between humor and elegy, and swims in philosophy. Semelyak's "vaudeville" is not a novel, but a huge poem in prose, allowing one to feel the existential vacuum of a whole generation that has refused to deal with modernity. It did not end well in life, but a hundred thousand better words in a better order is quite an acceptable compensation for the realization: as it was in May 2008, it will never be again.