Vodka-fuelled mishaps, grotesque comic cameos and – above all – quick-fire dialogue that swings and stings propel this furious twilight romp from the final days of Soviet power.

The Independent

Katherine Dovlatov's translation captures the wit and bittersweet irony of her father's Russian rural comedy.

The Guardian

A desperately hilarious, flippantly tragic gem. Read it--and weep. And laugh. But read it.

A.D. Miller

Dovlatov greeted his success in America with mixed feelings, fearing that in English he would never be appreciated for what he most valued - his language. This first translation, by his daughter Katherine, of a work he particularly cherished is a powerful argument to the contrary. Its great merit is to recreate the varied speech patterns and colloquial mode of storytelling that Dovlatov worked so hard to render natural in Russian.

TLS

Amusing and richly disconcerting.

TLS

I loved Katherine Dovlatov's translation of Sergei Dovlatov's novel Pushkin Hills, one of the late Soviet émigré writer's most personal works. Katherine Dovlatov brings into English her father's gritty mix of elegy and wit.

Rachel Polonsky, TLS