Zoshchenko is Stylin' in LA

Mikhail Zoschenko gets mad love from THE LATIMES BOOK REVIEW for The Galosh:

"The tales in "The Galosh and Other Stories," selected and translated by Jeremy Hicks, are so brief that they occupy only 169 pages in a volume of 208. But this book provides the broadest selection of Zoshchenko yet published in English, with almost half the stories translated for the first time. It omits Zoshchenko's longer work, such as "Sentimental Tales" and "Youth Restored," as well as his children's books. Hicks focuses on the brief and the satirical, which results in a unified tone and a very amusing book. It is difficult to imagine a more accessible volume of Russian fiction. Written from the trenches of everyday life under a totalitarian regime, these stories read like war dispatches, yet with the skewed humor and manic invention of, say, Irish writer Flann O'Brien."

It's official, the galosh has come back into style.--Jim