Hotel ""Million Monkeys"" and Other Stories

The six stories of Brook's fantasy-rich collection (his first to be translated into English) revolve around traditional Russian themes of loneliness and despair, transposed to foreign locales and flavored with a touch of poetic whimsy. After a few strong drinks, the depressed Russian village schoolteacher protagonist of the title story watches a kaleidoscopic world of fantastic imagery unfold as he brazenly envisions searching for ""paradise on earth"" alongside Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama. Some stories' exotic settings disguise simple plots. In ""A Ceiling with Lizards,"" a Russian man seeks shelter in a guesthouse in India where a young American teacher lives. He expects a romantic interlude, while she's desperately trying to escape a life of predictable expectations. ""A Veranda for Showers,"" also set in India, features an American businessman with the uncanny ability to observe precise moments in life when ""everything comes together."" But when he tries to capture paradise by photographing a woman bathing under his hotel window, he is cruelly punished for his arrogance. Other stories rely less heavily on reverie. ""Vodka and Broads,"" the humorous final tale, tells of a Russian businessman who immigrates to America and plots to achieve an independently wealthy life without ever actually working. Brook's prose is lyrical and evocative, with the intense, stop-motion energy of music video montage, but his tales sometimes seems to vaporize in the haze of language. Brook's personal history--he is a Russian migr , a former construction foreman in Siberia and currently a resident of South Florida--may pique the interest of fellow one-time Soviets. (Nov.)