Weaving fact and fiction, travelogue and an erotically charged game of cat-and-mouse, the acclaimed French writer and director Emmanuel Carr re sets out with his film crew to Russia. Their destination is Kotelnich, a drab Russian town where relief from the mundane comes in the form of alcohol and petty crime.

A Russian Novel traces Carr re s pursuit of three obsessions: a good story, the disappearance of his Russian grandfather and his fascination with a woman he loves but cannot keep from destroying. Chapter by chapter, Carr re builds fictions from his own life, inflicting his plots on lovers and family along the way. Road trip, confession, emotional tour-de-force, A Russian Novel is a brilliant, shocking story, and confirms Carr re s status as one of France s outstanding writers.

Elegant and passionate, A Russian Novel weaves the strands of Carrere's story into a travelogue of a journey inward. Road trip, confession, emotional tour de force, this fearless reckoning illuminates the schemes we devise to evade ourselves and the inevitable payment they exact.