Overview

This revelatory novel shows why Karl Ove Knausgaard has likened its celebrated Russian author to an ""indomitable ... animal that won't let go of something when it gets its teeth into it."" The book tells the story of a young Russian named Kirill, the sole survivor of a once numerous clan of German origin, who delves relentlessly into the unresolved past. His ancestor, Balthasar Schwerdt, son of a prominent surgeon, migrated to the Russian Empire in the 1830s, where he practiced alternative medicine, landing in the court of Catherine the Great. Schwerdt became captive to an erratic nobleman who supplied midgets, hunchbacks from Africa, and magicians to entertain the empress. Kirill's investigation takes us through centuries of turmoil during which none of the German's nine children or their descendants can escape their adoptive country's cruel fate. Intent on uncovering buried mysteries, Kirill searches archives and cemeteries across Europe, while pressing witnesses for keys to understanding. The Goose Fritz illuminates both personal and political history in a passion-filled family saga about an often confounding country that has long fascinated the world.

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9781939931641

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Reviews

Masterly ... Readers get a palpable sense of history's weight and also of its loss ... Another inspiring Lebedev work. --Library Journal Fascinating ... An evocative excursion across more than a century, The Goose Fritz provokes consideration of national identity and the role it plays in sustaining an individual. --Foreword Reviews I met Sergei Lebedev ... There was something indomitable about him that made me think about an animal that won't let go of something when it gets its teeth into it. Lebedev's books dealt with history -- it lay like a shadow over everything he wrote -- and the fact that its presence was so powerful suggested that the conflicts and tensions inherent in it were still unresolved, still had a bearing on Russian society in obscure yet palpable ways. --Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New York Times Magazine An overwhelming historical and literary panorama. --Frankfurter Rundschau Focuses on the hatred of outsiders, the cruel relief strategies of a frightened society ... An uncompromising critic of the Russian government ... Lebedev sees the mounting persecution of a minority not only as a consequence but almost as an inherent condition of totalitarianism. --S ddeutsche Zeitung The hero of the novel, Kirill, enters a new world where he is confronted with shocking knowledge. It's almost as if alongside the laws of physics there is also the enigmatic force of history, the gravitation of the living past ... Lebedev strives to give expression to the unspeakable, to write about the violence, the war and the terror of Russia's recent past. Lebedev tells the story in lush and melancholy verbal imagery. --Wiener Zeitung

Sergei Lebedev writes about our failure to understand the Stalinist era and to see that Russia is today a country torn into pieces. Lebedev's characters seek ways to cut the umbilical cord with the past. --Svetlana Alexievich, 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature I met Sergei Lebedev ... There was something indomitable about him that made me think about an animal that won't let go of something when it gets its teeth into it. Lebedev's books dealt with history -- it lay like a shadow over everything he wrote -- and the fact that its presence was so powerful suggested that the conflicts and tensions inherent in it were still unresolved, still had a bearing on Russian society in obscure yet palpable ways. --Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New York Times Magazine An overwhelming historical and literary panorama. --Frankfurter Rundschau The hero of the novel, Kirill, enters a new world where he is confronted with shocking knowledge. It's almost as if alongside the laws of physics there is also the enigmatic force of history, the gravitation of the living past ... Lebedev strives to give expression to the unspeakable, to write about the violence, the war and the terror of Russia's recent past. Lebedev tells the story in lush and melancholy verbal imagery. --Wiener Zeitung

Sergei Lebedev writes about our failure to understand the Stalinist era and to see that Russia is today a country torn into pieces. Lebedev's characters seek ways to cut the umbilical cord with the past. --Svetlana Alexievich, 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature I met Sergei Lebedev ... There was something indomitable about him that made me think about an animal that won't let go of something when it gets its teeth into it. Lebedev's books dealt with history -- it lay like a shadow over everything he wrote -- and the fact that its presence was so powerful suggested that the conflicts and tensions inherent in it were still unresolved, still had a bearing on Russian society in obscure yet palpable ways. --Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New York Times Magazine An overwhelming historical and literary panorama. --Frankfurter Rundschau

Fascinating ... An evocative excursion across more than a century, The Goose Fritz provokes consideration of national identity and the role it plays in sustaining an individual. --Foreword Reviews I met Sergei Lebedev ... There was something indomitable about him that made me think about an animal that won't let go of something when it gets its teeth into it. Lebedev's books dealt with history -- it lay like a shadow over everything he wrote -- and the fact that its presence was so powerful suggested that the conflicts and tensions inherent in it were still unresolved, still had a bearing on Russian society in obscure yet palpable ways. --Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New York Times Magazine An overwhelming historical and literary panorama. --Frankfurter Rundschau Focuses on the hatred of outsiders, the cruel relief strategies of a frightened society ... An uncompromising critic of the Russian government ... Lebedev sees the mounting persecution of a minority not only as a consequence but almost as an inherent condition of totalitarianism. --S ddeutsche Zeitung The hero of the novel, Kirill, enters a new world where he is confronted with shocking knowledge. It's almost as if alongside the laws of physics there is also the enigmatic force of history, the gravitation of the living past ... Lebedev strives to give expression to the unspeakable, to write about the violence, the war and the terror of Russia's recent past. Lebedev tells the story in lush and melancholy verbal imagery. --Wiener Zeitung

Author Information

Sergei Lebedev was born in Moscow in 1981 and worked for seven years on geological expeditions in northern Russia and Central Asia. Lebedev is a poet, essayist and journalist. Oblivion, his first novel, has been translated into many languages and was named one of the ten best novels of 2016 by The Wall Street Journal. Lebedev's second novel, Year of the Comet, has also received considerable acclaim. Antonina W. Bouis, who translated all three of Sergei Lebedev's novels, is one of the leading translators of Russian literature working today. She has translated over eighty works from authors such as Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Mikhail Bulgakov, Andrei Sakharov, Sergei Dovlatov, and Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Bouis, previously executive director of the Soros Foundation in the former USSR, now lives in New York City.

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