{"product_id":"the-delegation-9781736344699","title":"The Delegation","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"A startlingly intellectual choose-your-own-adventure story... told in an energetic voice edged with sharp humor, THE DELEGATION is a stunner.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e-Aaron Hamburger, author of Hotel Cuba\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"Landes is one of the best comic novelists working today, which is to say, one of the best novelists, and I suspect he can do just about anything (except, maybe, be boring).\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e-Christian TeBordo, author of Discord, a Regression\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"Landes is both precise and gonzo. The story's three layers radiate off of one another while each offering their own distinctive voice and vision. All the tensions of the postwar world folded up and condensed in on themselves in delirious (and magnetically readable) complexity.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e-Brett Biebel, author of 48 Blitz\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMoscow, 1943. The Soviet Army has defeated the Nazis at Stalingrad, but continuing to defend the Motherland will require arms, money, and allies around the world. To rally support, Joseph Stalin dispatches a delegation of two Jewish artists, the world-renowned actor (and self-appointed Head Jew of the Soviet Union) Solomon Mikhoels and his Party handler, the middling poet Lieutenant Colonel Itzik Feffer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom the pyramids of Egypt to the Polo Grounds of New York City, the garrulous Mikhoels entertains crowds with bold and problematic pronouncements, while Feffer reflects on the dimming of his revolutionary spirit and wonders when and how he turned into a timid middle-aged functionary who now spends his days obsessing over the state of his intestinal tract.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn pursuit of their noble cause, Mikhoels and Feffer meet a wealthy lawyer turned artist and his idiot cousin, entreat a tongueless heiress, compare notes with an oversexed Albert Einstein, and share the stage with the great Paul Robeson. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLess than ten years later, they would both be murdered.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTruth and fiction eye each other warily in this true story as told by a fictional author struggling to pen an epic work of historical fiction.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Operation Dodecahedron","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51199553798418,"sku":"9781736344699","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_cd0e81c1-065f-4f57-b8a0-57aadd4fa378.jpg?v=1744880089","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-delegation-9781736344699","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}