Set in Prague in the period between Vaclav Havel's rise to the presidency and the breakup of Czechoslovakia, Men in Space, Tom McCarthy's second novel (the third to be published in the U.S.), follows the lives of a group of nihilistic, promiscuous 20-something Bohemian artistes adrift in a world of excess drinking and excess partying and a crew of Bulgarian gangsters involved in an ill-conceived art heist run amok.
At the center of the story is Anton Markov, a former soccer referee turned nonviolent gangster whose job consists of collecting funds for a Bulgarian crime boss, Ilievski. Ilievski commissions Markov to locate an artist who will create an exact replica of an obscure Bulgarian iconographic painting to deceive local authorities, allowing the authentic piece to be sold on the black market. Markov enlists the help of his former neighbor, Nick Boardaman, an English art critic and nude portrait artist, to locate a suitable artist in masterminding the deception. The artist turns out to be none other than Nick's roommate, the horny and crack-addicted Ivan. By novel's end, all who cross paths with the work are destined to meet misfortune.
McCarthy paints a bleak and disjointed portrait of his intimate cast of characters, using the stolen icon's melancholy ascent to the heavens as the focal point of his narrative. The London writer, whose fame in the art world comes from his role as the general secretary of the avant-garde International Necronautical Society, evokes the social climate of the European art scene with finesse and mastery. Just like the lost cosmonaut orbiting the planet who gives Men in Space its title, however, the outcomes may have one grappling with despair. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer