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Antoine Volodine: LesFilles de Monroe (The Monroe Girls))
This novel is set in a decidedly grim future, three centuries after the second Soviet Union, which, knowing the views of our author, isPutin’s reign. The location is grim, as it was partially a a former cosmonaut rehabilitation facility but also a Soviet style psychiatric ward. Many of the buildings appear to have been abandoned and in poor condition and even the use ones in use also seem to in poor condition with limited lighting and so on.
To make it more complicated our main character may well be one person or two persons. We have an unnamed narrator and his colleague.Breton who frequently, but by no means always, seem to be one and the same person. It gets even more complicated when we find that people who are dead often seem to be somehow still alive.
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Our two main characters seem to be located in a room in the psychiatric ward where they spy on events outside. In particular, they’re looking at one street – Dellwo Street. For some reason only they can see this street. Their political masters, who seem to be typical Soviet KGB types and are urging them to spot what is going on and, in particular they are looking for Monroe and the women who worked with him. Very early in the book they see one of these women. She is Rebecca Rausch.. The narrator said he had been in love with her 30 years ago but then she died. Despite this, they see her climb out of the fourth floor with a bunch of military equipment and escape. Their political masters want to know about her but despite the usual Soviet style thuggery, tthey pretend they have not seen her. The.Party masters are particularly interested in Monroe who was allegedly assassinated many years ago but seems to have somehow reappeared and may well be starting some form of counterrevolution. Our hero(es) can apparently access his dreams, which seems important to the Party Masters.
Their main contact with the masters this through a man called Kaytel. We learn a fair amount about him including his affair with the overweight nymphomaniac.Dame Patmos who had allegedly had an affair with Monroe, dumpingKaytel in the process and is now a senior party official has been given a job of getting Kaytel and our hero)es find out the appropriate information about Monroe and his goals.
Kaytel feels that he can do what our hero)es do, namely get in touch with the dead.He has a friend who might be able to help but when he visits him there are only dead people on the stairs and his friend is not there , though, of course he does manage to have a conversation with the dead couple.
It all gets more complicated when someone else arrives and mistakes the identity ofKaytel. The dead people, of course, intervene and when Dame Patmos turns up, declared she’d given up her senior position in the Party and now was looking for ways to leave the camp, and even the world in general.
One complication is that there seems to be numerous factions of the party with very strange names such as “Five Perfume” Communists and The Old Taciturns and The Red Renouncers. Everyone seems to be a member of one of these and in and in some cases more than one but no one seems to be long to the same one as anyone else. Apart from their odd name it is not clear exactly what they do. The last few pages of the book, gives a long list of all these various attractions but not what they do.
Meanwhile our two hero(es) are wandering the mean streets, not always clear where they’re going, but at least they appear to have a much better idea of the geography of the streets and the many abandoned buildings than anyone else. They do track Rebecca down and find her a psychiatric ward she does not exactly welcome her former lover and is indeed quite abusive towards him. It is clear that something is going on but is equally clear that she is not entirely sure what and where and she has to rely.on our two hero(es) as, apparently the maps she has are useless. Rebecca Rausch’s mission was to unfold in several directions and it had several degrees of importance, from the most futile to the most epic.. It is clear that there is a plan for the Monroe girls to meet up with each other and with Monroe and possibly start a counter-revolution, though this is not entirely clear. No one seems to know where to go or what to do. Most importantly, where is the government? Secondly of course is who is the government? Apart from.Kaytel, Patmos and one or two other party members we are not clear what the hierarchy is, where it is and what it wants except, presumably to continue ruling, Soviet style.
Anyway, there is some sort of plan involving the Monroe girls and Monroe himself and, not surprisingly, it all goes wrong for all parties, the good, the bad and the ugly.
This is definitely a very strange book. It is set in what appears to be an abandoned town. With most of the buildings dilapidated and most, inevitably uninhabited. there seems to have been some sort of catastrophe but it is not entirely clear. We have two heroes who may be one person but maybe two. They seem to have some special powers and special instruments to see places that ordinary people cannot, and even see into peoples dreams. Yet they are subjected to thuggery of the Soviet style guards.Add to this a thin, and at times none existent line between the living of the dead and people dying and then returning to life and it all ends up a very unusual, interesting but d decidedly grim outlook on life and is clearly, at least in part, a mockery of both the Soviet system and the post Soviet system.
Publishing history
First published in 2021 by Editions du Seuil
First published in English in 2026 by Archipelago Books
Translated byAlyson Waters