Its prologue, "Steel in Motion," describes a metaphorical telephone exchange system that links its vast array of characters across the 20th century in Germany and the Soviet Union.
The title girl of this book's chapter Zoya declares "you can't hang all 190 million of us" as she is executed for arson. Another of its characters is Kurt Gerstein, who kills himself after failing to sabotage shipments of Zyklon B. It opens with a description of a "squat black telephone," which it compares to an octopus. Its chapter "A Pianist from Kilgore" describes van Cliburn winning the Tchaikovsky prize. This book consists of eighteen paired stories, which are labelled "Pincer Movements" and which frequently concern the relationship between the filmmaker Roman Karmen, his wife Elena Konstantinovskaya, and thecomposer Dmitri Shostakovich. Its prologue, "Steel in Motion," describes a metaphorical telephone exchange system that links its vast array of characters across the 20th century in Germany and the Soviet Union. For 10 points, name this 2005 novel by William T. Vollmann.
The title girl of this book's chapter Zoya declares "you can't hang all 190 million of us" as she is executed for arson.
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