The Naked Pioneer Girl

In this sendup of the heroic literature of Stalin's Soviet Union-""a breathtaking battle piece and erotic extravaganza in eight positively vulcanic-vulvaic chapters,"" as the epigraph has it-Mikhail Kononov employs every figure of speech imaginable to recount the adventures of Young Pioneer Maria Mukhina, or Midge. In The Naked Pioneer Girl, Midge valiantly services Stalin's troops during WWII and flies naked in the skies over Leningrad at night, terrorizing Hitler's soldiers. Kononov's clotted prose and ironic references will be hard for U.S. readers to navigate, despite Andrew Bromfield's resourceful translation.