"Why a young American writer in the 1980s chose to imagine seriously the end of a Bulgarian revolutionary is cause for wonder in itself. That he also seriously employs new narrative techniques to do so is doubly impressive. One comes away from this little book with a bitter taste at the back of the throat, a taste that may very well be that of recent Eastern European history." —Andrei Codrescu, New York Times Book Review
"[A] thoroughly informed and deeply disturbing meditation on the ultimate futility of overdetermined conviction, of ideological commitment, of absolute politics itself." --James McCourt
"Everyone knows that dead men tell no tales. But this book offers a suggestion that maybe it's a shame they don't. Here's a fine effort to capture disappearing history—history that vanishes by being forgotten. And here's a sharp reminder that all countries are potentially obscure, and all people potentially unknown."
—Madison Smartt Bell
