Summary: Good Afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of the Avid Reader. Today our guest is Michael Honig (Michael Hanig) author of The Senility of Vladimir P. Released last month by Pegasus. This thinly veiled, very thinly veiled look at the life, post today, of a despotic and thug-like ruler of modern day Russia reminds us that a country trodden on over centuries, oft-times seemingly points itself in the right direction and then is thoroughly trodden on again. Told through the eyes of Nikolai Sheremetev (Sher Eh May Tev) caretaker and naïf of the now senile and delusional 5 time President and two time Prime Minister of one of the most corrupt countries on earth, we visit first hand the nature and extent of that corruption and the many forms it takes. Along with this incisive and cynical look at Russia we have to deal with, coincidentally, our own election cycle in America and ask are we ready for that same type of leadership the same type of despotic government riddled with vice, ruled by oligarchs presided over by a smug, egomaniacal emperor of sorts. But I digress. Vladimir P. is a masterwork, not only in terms of stripping away the screen that protects a country that even now is annexing the Ukraine, invading Syria and laughing in our faces at our own foolishness. In sum, you will find this book entertaining, comical and absurd as well as scary, not in the sense of monsters although there is one, but in the sense of there but for the grace of God, go we. And it is all true. At least as the reader I feel that way.
