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...