Let's Put the Future Behind Us

Jack Womack is known for writing unflinching, imaginative, utterly convincing novels set in the not-so-distant future. Compared to both William Gibson and Kurt Vonnegut, and deemed “wonderfully inventive” by the New York Times, Womack’s past work has won him awards and garnered excellent reviews. Now, with the appropriately titled Let’s Put the Future Behind Us, Womack turns his attention to our contemporary world, with characteristically hilarious, and frightening, results.

Former bureaucrat Max Borodin is one of Moscow’s most successful businessmen. He strolls through the wreckage of today’s Russia with ease—convincing people to do his bidding, providing its citizens (both friends and clients) with the luxury goods they covet, and generally leading a prosperous and satisfying existence. Life in what Max calls “the land of opportunity” isn’t perfect, however: His wife, Tanya, nags him; his mistress, Sonya, exhausts him; his brother, Evgeny, constantly needs to be extricated from shady business ventures. And there are always the country’s reasonable and unreasonable mafias, who are awaiting their chance to expropriate the profits of Max’s Universal Manufacturing Company, which produced documents, historical and otherwise, to suit every purpose. “We can prove John Kennedy shot himself,” Max notes, “as long as we are paid in advance.”

Then Sonya’s husband, Dmitry, offers Max a business opportunity that is too good to pass up. Long used to reshaping history to suit the needs of his customers, or himself, Max discovers that the thinner you stretch the truth, the more dangerous it is to walk upon.

A biting book filled with irony and black humor, Let’s Put the Future Behind Us provides a seductive look at post-Soviet Russia and a cold-eyed examination of the darker side of the human soul.