The Man Who Couldn't Die: The Tale of an Authentic Human Being

In 1990s Russia, the wife and stepdaughter of a paralyzed veteran conceal the Soviet Union's collapse from him in order to keep him—and his pension—alive.

Olga Slavnikova's The Man Who Couldn't Die tells the story of how two women try to prolong a life—and the means and meaning of their own lives—by creating a world that doesn't change, a Soviet Union that never crumbled.

After her stepfather's stroke, Marina hangs Brezhnev's portrait on the wall, edits the Pravda articles read to him, and u...