Waiting for the Electricity
A Novel
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In the republic of Georgia, the Communists are long gone, replaced by . . . well, by what? Something much more confusing. There are no jobs in the cities. And when there are jobs, employees aren’t compensated. And when they are compensated, it’s because the jobs are . . . not strictly scrupulous. In the village, life goes on much as it always did, but these days, the homemade farmers cheese is giving way to the oil pipeline. And as for romance in this strange, confounding modern age . . . the less said, the better. But there’s one man in Georgia who remains unseduced by corruption, unfazed by nostalgia, and unable to abandon chivalry, no matter how antiquated a notion it may be. This man is Slims Achmed Makashvili, a humble maritime lawyer and the hero of this brilliant novel. When Slims discovers an application for an American small business internship program sponsored by Hillary Clinton, he knows that he has found his calling. In his letters to Senator Clinton, Slims dreams of bringing efficiency, opportunity, and the American dream to his homeland, even as his friends and relatives embrace decadence, lethargy, and a staggering array of unsavory business practices. But when he finally gets to America—specifically to utopian San Francisco, where the streets are paved with quinoa—Slims sees what reform and progress look like up close. And suddenly, his loud, bickering family and his anguished, joyful country no longer seem so grim. A gleeful picaresque, a visionary satire, and a work of extraordinary empathy and imagination, Waiting for the Electricity is a marvelously imaginative debut novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This inventive debut from Nichol, who has taught English in the Republic of Georgia, where the book is set, provides a satirical but good-natured look at the clash between American and Georgian attitudes. Slims Achmed Makashvili, a self-effacing attorney working in the Georgian Maritime Ministry of Law, lives in Batumi, a small town on the Black Sea. Bemoaning the deplorable condition of post-Soviet Georgia, where corruption is rife and electricity scarce, Slims enters a business-proposal-writing contest sponsored by Hillary Clinton to teach citizens of former U.S.S.R. satellite states about free-market capitalism. He submits his application with help from his sister, Juliet, who teaches English at a local university, and is surprised to be informed afterward by the American embassy that he has won entry to a six-week internship in San Francisco, which involves attending an economic conference. While staying with his American host, small business owner Merrick, Slims is impressed by the law and order he observes, as well as by the abundance of electricity. He comes up with a dubious business plan for importing Georgian sheep to the U.S. before embarking on a madcap road trip that brings his stay to an ignominious end. Tongue-in-cheek humor and Slims's deadpan narration of his improbable tale add considerable appeal to this promising first novel.