Several years after emigrating from the USSR, the author discovers the battered suitcase he had brought with him gathering dust at the back of a wardrobe. As he opens the suitcase, the seemingly undistinguished items he finds inside take on a riotously funny life of their own as Dovlatov inventories the circumstances under which he acquired them. A poplin shirt evokes the bittersweet story of courtship and marriage, a pair of boots calls up the hilarious conclusion to an official banquet, two pea-green crepe socks bring back memories of his partly successful attempt to become a black-market racketeer, while a double-breasted suit reminds him of when he was approached by the KGB to spy on a Swedish writer.
- ISBN10 0802112463
- ISBN13 9780802112460
- Publish Date 20 February 2018 (first published 21 March 2011)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 10 December 2011
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 128
- Language English