After living in the US for many years, he was repatriated to Russia and imprisoned in a gulag, where he worked in a secret laboratory inventing devices for Soviet espionage.Ī book featuring a scientist as the lead character may sound like a strange concept, but it works extraordinarily well, probably because Michaels gives Dr Theremin such a compelling voice - part arrogant, part naive, often bewildered and constantly lovelorn - and adds a few fictionalised elements to his character - he practices kung fu, for instance - which gives the story an almost surreal quality. Sean Michaels’ debut novel, Us Conductors, is a fictionalised account of the life of Russian engineer and physicist Lev Sergeyevich Termen (1896-1993) - later known as Leon Theremin - who invented the electronic musical instrument that takes his name: the theremin*. Fiction – paperback Tin House Books 459 pages 2014.
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