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Recalling the open-hearted honesty of Ben Lerner and the whisky-sour satire of Bret Easton Ellis, Back to Moscow is a dazzlingly original, witty and ultimately haunting debut.
    The early 2000s, and Moscow is storming into the century as money and an assertive political elite rise to power. Months after his arrival, expat student Martin hasn’t written a word of his thesis on the heroines of the Russian classics because the cheap, bright lure of nightclubs, vodka and real women is predictably hard to resist. He finds himself torn between opposing sensibilities: on the one hand, the limpid appeal of Lena, and her insistence on the Mysterious Russian Soul; on the other, that of his research supervisor Lyudmila Aleksandrovna – diligent, serious, caught in the shadow of a soviet past. Can the fates of Anna Karenina, Pushkin’s Tatyana or Chekhov’s three sisters help him understand the women in his life?
    Martin’s restless explorations turn into a half-grasped search for meaning as Moscow leads him to dark and unexpected places tinged by Russia’s ever-present sense of impending tragedy.
 
‘Elegant and dramatic – my favourite kind of company. Back to Moscow is a book to get lost in, like a city. A rich and deeply charming debut’ Emma Jane Unsworth, author of Animals
 
‘Guillermo Erades savours the sweetness and cruelty of conquest with a candour that rivals that of Milan Kundera. And as Martin’s luck falters, Erades tumbles his hero into a sentimental education with a slyness worthy of Chekhov’ Caleb Crain, author of Necessary Errors
 
‘An ambitious debut which chronicles an individual’s struggle to lead a meaningful life’ 
Independent on Sunday

Source: Goodreads