The Breaking of Eggs: A Novel

Read Jim Powell's blogs and other content on the Penguin Community. The Breaking of Eggs is the story of the curmudgeonly Feliks Zhokovski, Polish by birth, Communist at heart, who at age 61 finds that just about everything he has based his life on is crumbling. Separated from him family as a child when the Nazis invaded Poland, Feliks is currently living in Paris and his life's work is a travel guide to the old Eastern bloc. But unfortunately for Feliks, it's 1991: the Berlin Wall has fallen, Communism has collapsed, East Germany isn't the economic miracle he wants it to be, and he's forced to confront the fact that his travel-writing days are numbered. His guide was a flourishing business, but the old pro-Communist descriptions won’t do, for Western visitors will now be able to see for themselves.