When first published in Paris in the 1930s, "The Cocaine Novel" created a scandal in Russian immigrant circles, perhaps not so much because of its subject matter, but because of the way the author approaches it.
The novel takes place during the narrator's adolescence, from World War I to shortly after the Russian Revolution. But the historical context is actually absent. The schoolboys feel their hearts swell with youth, and with two rubles in their pockets, they wander through the streets in search of passionate love, indifferent to the Revolution boiling around them. Vadim is tough, fickle, selfish. One night he plunges into Sonia's blue gaze, fearless and unarmed, risking losing himself. On the journey from true happiness to the artificial paradise, Vadim will soon discover cocaine, "light as magic." And here, all the adventures of youth will come crashing down.
But the author is not there to answer the controversy. No one ever met the mysterious Mr. M. Aggeev in France, but the information that some may have seen him somewhere else remained mere speculation. To this day, we actually know nothing about the man who wrote "The Cocaine Novel." However, whoever M. Aggeev was, he left us an exciting book.