The draft dodger Laurence yearns to take control of his destiny. Having fled to the highlands, he asserts his independence by committing a string of robberies & murders. Then he happens upon Ivlita, a beautiful young woman trapped in an intricately carved mahogany house. Laurence does not hesitate to take her as well. Determined to drape his young bride in jewels, he plots ever more daring heists. Yet when Laurence finds himself casting bombs alongside members of a revolutionary cell, he must again ask: is he a free man or a pawn of history? Rapture is a fast-paced adventure-romance & a literary treat of the highest order. With a deceptively light h&, Iliazd entertains questions that James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, & Thomas Mann once faced. How does the individual balance freedom & necessity, love & death, creativity & sterility? What is the role of violence in human history & culture? How does language both comfort & fail us in our postwar, post-Christian world? Censored for decades in the Soviet Union, Rapture was nearly lost to Russian & Western audiences. This translation rescues Laurence`s surreal journey from the oblivion he, too, faces as he tries to outrun fate.