America under Donald Trump. Many have ridiculed him. None have done so with such scathing wit as Mikhail Iossel. From a youth spent in the USSR to a life remade in the USA, Iossel shares the brunt of this experience on Facebook, where thousands follow his blistering, penetrating posts on Trump's America and Putin's Russia, and his pensive, eerily timely recollections of life under totalitarianism. Notes from Cyberground brings together a choice selection of Iossel's aphorisms, ranging from a few words to a few hundred. Each chapter covers a month from Election Day 2016 to summer 2018. Even when comical, this gem of a book is dead serious. It will bring solace to anyone who feels distressed by today's surreal politics. Read it – you'll be informed, transformed, and even amused – and stay tuned for more.
"Mikhail Iossel is an intense and thoughtful force for decency in the world."
George Saunders
"Mikhail Iossel's Notes from Cyberground is our social media De Profundis with a touch of J'Accuse. Thoughtful, furious, eloquent, these posts are the diary of a writer who left the Soviet Union, stayed in touch with the horrors of the Putin reign, and after the 2016 elections, has experienced a hideous Deja vu: a nightmare for someone who knows first-hand what a dictatorship looks like."
Francine Prose
"Long after the present rulers are deposed, this treasury of invective will deserve to be read on its literary merits, just as we still read Pope's and Swift's satires of their contemporaries. The comparisons between Putin and Trump are especially priceless, as are Iossel's portrayals of his/our liberal befuddlement."
