Vasily Krymov is a first-generation Russian immigrant living in Youngstown, Ohio. He drinks coffee at the Waffle House. He drinks rum in seedy strip clubs. He washes dishes at a steakhouse for minimum wage. Through all of it, he thinks of suicide, envisioning grand escapes from his own personal hell.
When he discovers a pill bottle full of Oxycontin in the restroom of a bar, Vasily thinks he has found his escape. He and his best friend devise a plant to sell the pills to raise enough money to head out west and escape the squalid streets of Youngstown forever. But for a man like Vasily, escaping one hell only means finding another.
A bleak, comedic masterpiece of down-and-outers in decaying America, "The Insurgent" is Noah Cicero at his minimalistic best. "The Collected Works of Noah Cicero Vol. 2" also features three of Noah Cicero's most acclaimed short stories: "Two Old Lovers Bring Out Their Guns," "Visiting My Sister," and "Two Hard Workers."
