"In a politically fractious America in which “bearing witness” has been attacked as a motive for art in recent years, emerging writers have nonetheless written boldly across divides of class, ethnic identity, and gender. Outstanding among these has been Anthony Marra, a young American author whose first two books are set mainly in Russia and the former Soviet Union. In A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, Marra’s debut novel, three survivors of the Second Chechen War band together in an abandoned hospital. In 2015’s The Tsar of Love and Techno, linked short stories follow various characters’ dreams and dashed hopes from the 1930s to the present, and then beyond."

"In a politically fractious America in which “bearing witness” has been attacked as a motive for art in recent years, emerging writers have nonetheless written boldly across divides of class, ethnic identity, and gender. Outstanding among these has been Anthony Marra, a young American author whose first two books are set mainly in Russia and the former Soviet Union. In A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, Marra’s debut novel, three survivors of the Second Chechen War band together in an abandoned hospital. In 2015’s The Tsar of Love and Techno, linked short stories follow various characters’ dreams and dashed hopes from the 1930s to the present, and then beyond."

"I sometimes hear films described as “Lynchian,” which, I take it, means that they deal with a certain space between light and darkness (or perhaps it’s just a more sophisticated way of saying that something is flat-out creepy). The Scarlet Empress is David Lynch for 1934 . . . and by that I mean that the lighting design is crucial. I love the scene where the freaky Grand Duke Peter (whom I recognized as the crotchety book salesman from my childhood favorite—the ever-so-slightly psychedelically tinged—Bedknobs and Broomsticks) emerges from the shadows to meet his new bride, the Princess Sophia Frederica (played by Marlene Dietrich) for the first time"