Review from a Transgressive Fiction Fan
Russian title of the novel can also be translated to English as Romance with Cocaine and somehow this variant appeals to me more.
Novel with Cocaine is factually a diary of a cad:
“…female charms, the kind that inflame the senses, are no more than kitchen smells: they tease you when you’re hungry and disgust you when you’ve had your fill.”
The protagonist goes the way his meanness and rascality should lead and lead him…
“I was terrified as only grown men and women can be when they wake in the middle of the night and begin to realize, in the absolute silence and solitude all around them, that it is not their dream that has woken them, that it is their whole way of life.”
For him there is no way but down, down to the bitter end.
“Insightful” Review from a Mainstream Reader
Pish