Books like Men in Space

Set in a Central Europe rapidly fragmenting after the fall of communism, Men in Space follows a cast of dissolute Bohemians, political refugees, football referees, deaf police agents, assassins, and stranded astronauts as they chase a stolen icon painting from Sofia to Prague and beyond. The icon’s melancholy orbit is reflected in the various characters’ ellipses and near misses as they career vertiginously through all kinds of space: physical, political, emotional, and metaphysical. What emerges is a vision of humanity adrift in history, and a world in a state of disintegration.