Vladimir Sorokin's first published novel, The Queue, is a sly comedy about the late Soviet "years of stagnation." It consists entirely of sounds and dialogue from people performing the quintessential Soviet act: joining a long line to buy something, without knowing what..Thousands of citizens are in line and the rumors are flying. Leather or suede? Jackets, jeans? Turkish, Swedish, maybe even American? It doesn't matter - if anything is on sale, you better line up to buy it. Sorokin's tour de force of ventriloquism and formal daring tells the whole story in snatches of unattributed dialogue, adding up to nothing less than the real voice of the people, overheard on the street as they joke and curse, fall in and out of love, slurp down ice cream or vodka, fill out crossword puzzles, and even go to sleep and line up again in the morning as the queue drags on.