A dark comedy by Mark Budman
After a century of brooding and talking telepathically to his Mausoleum janitor from his glass coffin, Vladimir Lenin awakens—alive and bewildered in the modern world. While his sudden resurrection sends shockwaves across the globe, nobody is really sure what to do with him, and it doesn’t take long for Lenin to realize he has no place in Putin’s Russia. Determined to reclaim power in the name of the workers and peasants—erm, middle-class citizens—he sets his sights on an unlikely new goal: the American presidency. As for Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution. “No Person except a natural-born Citizen shall be eligible to the Office of President,” let his supporters take care of that.
Armed with old ideals and a flair for reinvention, Lenin becomes a sensation—part political maverick, part global spectacle. While his rise captivates the masses and brings on board of his election committee American billionaires and ordinary mortals attracted to him like a moth to the flames, not everyone is thrilled by his resurrections. Among them is Dr. Litvinova, a brilliant scientist obsessed with Lenin’s image, who may hold the key to both his miraculous revival and his ultimate downfall. But Lenin is a new and old phoenix. He emerges from ashes again and again, and burns others to ashes in the process.
Mark Budman grew up in the shadow of Lenin back in the Soviet Union. That novel was in the making his entire life, or at least since he learned how to write.
Nat 1 Publishing is proud to present darkly satirical and eerily relevant The Lives and Deaths of Vladimir Lenin—a sharp, thought-provoking exploration of power, ambition, and the absurdity of history repeating itself.
Endorsements
“This book sounds wild, and timely.”
——Aimee Margot Bender, author of The Butterfly Lampshade, Knopf
“A new player has taken the stage — and not just any stage, but the grandest of all: the Oval Office. Fresh from his glass box in Red Square, Lenin has traded embalmed eternity for executive power. Yes, that Lenin — Vladimir Ilyich himself. Being slightly dead is no obstacle; he’s sharper (and funnier) than half the living presidents combined. In LIVES AND DEATHS OF VLADIMIR LENIN, Mark delivers a dark comedy that speaks less to Lenin’s time than to ours — and to the future he inhabits in the novel.”
——Julia Nemirovskaya, Poet, Writer, and Senior Instructor in Literature, University of Oregon.
“There is a new force in town. Washington D.C., that is. He exchanged his open coffin in the Red Square Mausoleum for the executive chair in the Oval Office. His name is Lenin. Vladimir Lenin. So what if he’s a little bit dead? He still can do better than most of his POTUS predecessors. If you don’t think so, think again. Mark’s dark comedy LIVES AND DEATHS OF VLADIMIR LENIN is 25% hilarious, 25% sad, 25% prognostic, 25% mysterious and 100% entertaining.”
——Nina Kossman, editor of Eastwest Literary Forum, a bilingual literary magazine in English and Russian
“Budman weaves a wild and entertaining surrealistic tale of a reanimated Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, coming back from the dead to make a run for the Presidency in the most unlikely of places, the United States of America. Lenin attracts a disparate band of sycophants who guide, and misguide, him through the political landscape of the 21st century. With a pinch of Bulgakov, and a dash of Gogol, Budman pulls off, in high style, a classic piece of Russian (and American) satire.”
——Bill Burkland – Author of the Award Winning Novel, The Misconceived Conception of a Baby Named Jesus
Worldwide Marketplaces:
Americas: USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil
Europe: Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands
Asia-Pacific: Japan, Australia, India
Trigger Warnings
Significant: –
Moderate: bigotry, death, physical violence
Mild: abuse, abduction, health issues, sexual content
Implied: mental illness, war