Layers of an Onion Dome

Announcing itself in the spirit of the Cold War thriller, act I of Jonathan Garfinkel’s debut novel sees a Fulbright Student from the United States, Gary Ruckler, arriving at Moscow State University in 1974, there to “follow in the footsteps of my literary idol, Mikhail Lermontov, author of A Hero of Our Time. A novel ahead of its time, a book whose passages consumed me.” As he dreams of becoming a writer himself, Gary is roped into the life of Aslan, a thirty-five-year-old Chechen student studying genetics and selling Wrangler jeans on the black market. Soon we meet more of the cast, including Gary’s beautiful classmate Anna Litvak; her giant, boisterous boyfriend, Zaza; and Igor, a “literature enthusiast” and “Perfect Young Communist.”

After a period of vodka, suspicion, and clichéd conversation about freedom, things take their inevitable turn. Aslan and Zaza disappear to...