In 1930s Russia, an eight-year-old boy named Vladimir is suddenly stricken with a chronic case of the hiccups. He soon finds himself spirited away to a Moscow hospital by the famous physician Sergei Namestikov, who puts him through a series of extraordinary-and often bizarre-treatments in an effort to find a cure. Then Sergei's chief medical rival, the brilliant Alexander Afiniganov, determines that beneath Vladimir's blank eyes lurks a pure, unbridled evil-and takes steps to remove the child from polite society. Abandoned by everyone but his hiccups, Vladimir is about to embark on a journey that is funny, poignant, and surreal-and that takes a close look at the nature of good and evil-in this novel, a winner of the Canadian Authors Association Award for Fiction from the author of Hanna Who Fell From the Sky

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