The Sacred Book of the Werewolf : A Novel

From Publishers Weekly Russian novelist Pelevin's chaotic latest examines contemporary Russia as viewed through the eyes of A. Hu-li, a 2,000-year-old werefox who is able to transform into a beautiful nymphet. The opening chapter is both an introduction to werefoxes as well as an account of how werefoxes, working as prostitutes, utilize their stunning looks to absorb a man's life energy. Hu-li's experiences are standard for an ancient werefox until she meets Alexander, an attractive Russian intelligence officer who happens to be a werewolf. The two share a whirlwind romance, and after some trouble, shack up in Hu-li's bomb shelter. While hiding out, Hu-li and Alexander argue about religion, death, truth and the like until they both claim to be the super-werewolf. This argument—and Hu-li's disclosure of her true age—rupture the bliss. Pelevin creates interesting enough characters, but the unexplainable plot twists and the author's preoccupation with philosophical ramblings are nearly as perilous as a silver bullet. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Part science fiction and part Ana?s Nin erotica, with a hint of Bridget Jones’s Diary and a whole lot of allegory, The Sacred Book of the Werewolf is the tale of A Hu-Li, a 2,000-year-old Taoist werefox who plies her trade as a prostitute in modern day Moscow. By hypnotizing johns with her magical tail, A Hu-li makes men believe they are having sex with her, earns a living, and maintains her virginity. That is until she encounters and falls in love with Alexander, a high-ranking Russian intelligence officer and—not so coincidentally—a werewolf. As he has done in his earlier works (including Homo Zapiens, 2002), Pelevin uses satire as a lens through which to view life in the post-Soviet era while at the same time casting new light on Russia’s classic writing and writers—Nabokov, Gogol, and even Russian fairy tales. Outright strange at moments, the novel holds our interest with unpredictable twists and turns, leaving us stunned, puzzled, and asking for more. --Heather Paulson

The world's first Zen Buddhist paranormal romance-published to coincide with Halloween

One of the most progressive writers at work today, Victor Pelevin's comic inventiveness has won him comparisons to Kafka, Calvino, and Gogol, and Time has described him as a "psychedelic Nabokov for the cyberage." In The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, a smash success in Russia and Pelevin's first novel in six years, paranormal meets transcendental with a splash of satire as A Hu-Li, a two-thousand-year-old shape-shifting werefox from ancient China meets her match in Alexander, a Wagner-addicted werewolf who's the key figure in Russia's Big Oil. Both a supernatural love story and an outrageously funny send-up of modern Russia, this stunning and ingenious work of the imagination is the sharpest novel to date from Russia's most gifted literary malcontent.

The Barnes & Noble Review

On Labor Day weekend in 2008, on a New York Times front page otherwise preoccupied with the American presidential election and another Atlantic hurricane portending natural and moral cataclysm, an implausible, bleakly hilarious headline sneaked in just under the fold:

"Russia's Lazy Collective Farms Are a Hot Capitalist Property," announced the article (which had nothing, at least on its surface, to do with the Georgian war). "[T]he business of buying and reforming collective farms is suddenly and improbably very profitable, attracting hedge fund managers, Russian oligarchs, Swedish portfolio investors and even a descendent of White Russian émigré nobility . [T]he new business model rests on a belief that Russia's long, painful history of collectivization is destined to end in large corporate factory farms."

A novel about a fifteen-year-old prostitute who is actually a 2,000-year-old werefox who seduces men with her tail and drains them of their sexual power. She falls in love with an FSB officer who is actually a werewolf