Two Hundred Brand New Shiny Cadillacs

Mark Neider, a young Ukrainian-born American IT specialist, finds himself in crime-ridden Yeltsin’s Russia, hot on the trail of wheeler dealers who swindled him out of a small fortune back in New York. In Moscow, Mark survives an aborted coup in October 1993 and encounters a mysterious stranger who claims to have had a hand in the recent constitutional crisis. Tasha, Mark’s Moscow daredevil girlfriend, helps him retrieve the money at a significant body count, but Mark is only allowed to leave the country with 10K, a mere fraction of the loot now in his possession. Tasha and her film scholar aunt hatch a plan. Tasha’s aunt keeps the money while her wealthy Chicagoan ex disburses the equivalent amount to Mark in return for Mark’s interviewing the elderly sister of Greg Davis, an American film director who is the subject of Tasha’s aunt’s scholarly interest. But there’s more than meets the eye to Greg Davis’s sister who takes Mark on a journey he may or may not return from.

Pavel Lembersky was born in Odesa, Ukraine, and emigrated to the United States in 1977. After receiving his BA in comparative literature from the University of California at Berkeley, Pavel did graduate work in film at San Francisco State University. He worked in New York City on film projects of Jonathan Demme and Spalding Gray and the Oscar-winning The Appointments of Dennis Jennings, among others. Pavel authored seven collections of short fiction and three novels. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.Pavel Lembersky was born in Odesa, Ukraine, and emigrated to the United States in 1977. After receiving his BA in comparative literature from the University of California at Berkeley, Pavel did graduate work in film at San Francisco State University. He worked in New York City on film projects of Jonathan Demme and Spalding Gray and the Oscar-winning The Appointments of Dennis Jennings, among others. Pavel authored seven collections of short fiction and three novels. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

"A frolicking ride of a novel, full of excitement and stunning insights at every twist and turn."

—Lara Vapnyar, author of Divide Me by Zero

"Ah yes, the great Russian realist tradition of Tolstoy and Chekhov sped right up to the present moment . . . Ooops! Wrong doorway. Pavel Lembersky has swept all the cards together and reshuffled the deck for us. Whether it’s twelve chairs or two hundred Cadillacs, the ride has begun. Gogol opened the stable door, Bulgakov changed the horses to wildcats, and now it’s time for further antics on the living page. Let excess and exuberance reign. Whether the scenery’s from Moscow or Boca Raton, the real and irreal will swap their masks at whatever pace they please. All these irregularities of expectation come from close to the bone when the writer’s raised up from late-Soviet Russia into another world and has seen the kingdoms fall. This is not some ingenious offhand po-mo jape from the land of the lucky. Its multiplex cargo comes straight from a true joker’s heart to you. I wish this book the happiest of landings."

—Rafi Zabor, author of The Bear Comes Home (winner of PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction)