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Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow

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About Lenin Lives Next Door

Jennifer Eremeeva has the keen eye of a David Remnick or Hedrick Smith, but she is a whole lot funnier! Lenin Lives Next Door is a raucous look at how life in Russia has evolved from Soviet days to Putin s time, told by Russia s leading expat humorist.

Beth KnobelFordham University

Lenin Lives Next Door is an excellent addition to the canon that says much about the day-to-lives and aspirations of today’s Russians, still stranded between Soviet legacy and uncertain future, as well as the world of the expat in such a country.

Mark GaleottiNew York University

If Jane Austen had been an American living in post-Soviet Moscow, she might have made similar observations to those in Jennifer Eremeeva’s “Lenin Lives Next Door.” This entertainingly bitchy comedy of manners describes itself as “creative nonfiction”; it is clever, funny and rude about everyone.

Phoebe TaplinRussia Beyond the Headlines

Comical, thoroughly entertaining, and insightful.

Kirkus Review

If you want to know what it's like to live in Russia for two decades without actually doing it, this is where I'd start.

Paul RichardsonRussian Life

“You can’t make this stuff up.”

So says American writer, Imperial Russia enthusiast, Romanov junkie, and veteran expatriate, Jennifer Eremeeva, who has lived for the last twenty years in Russia after she fell in love with, and married HRH, her Handsome Russian Husband (occasionally a.k.a. Horrible Russian Husband). Luckily for Eremeeva, she didn’t need to make up most of the events that inspired this, her first novel. When she (and her alter-ego heroine, coincidentally named Jennifer) quit her job to write full time, she became enthralled with the dingy gray building across the courtyard from her apartment, where, it turned out, Vladimir Lenin’s embalmed corpse was routinely freshened up and preserved. The result is Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow.

Based on Eremeeva’s two decades in Russia, Lenin Lives Next Door knits together vignettes of cross-cultural marriage and expatriate life with sharp observation, colorful historical background, and engaging humor. Each thematic chapter is an anecdotal exploration of an aspect of life in today’s Russia, told with the help of a recurring cast of eccentric Russian and expat characters.

Lenin Lives Next Door introduces readers to Russians in their everyday milieu: at their dachas, in three-day traffic jams, and celebrating their 300-plus public and professional holidays with mayonnaise-based salads.  For anyone who has ever long to visit Russia, this witty and engaging novel is the perfect tour guide.   Short-listed for a total of twelve prestigious publishing awards Lenin Lives Next Door is a delightfully fresh inside look at Russia by a recovering Russophile.

Accolades for Lenin Lives Next Door:

Next Generation Indie Awards 2014

  • Finalist:  Travel/Travel Guide
  • Finalist:  Humor/Comedy

National Indie Excellence Awards 2014

  • Finalist:  Comedy-Humor
  • Finalist:  Travel

The International Book Awards

  • Finalist:  Fiction: General
  • Finalist: Best New Fiction

Readers’ Favorite Book Awards

  • Finalist:  General Fiction
  • Finalist:  Humor Fiction
  • Finalist:  Culture Fiction

Writers’ Digest 2014

  • Honorable Mention