Survival of the Fittest

A pair of newly unconjoined twins, set loose in London, must decide whether to embrace freedom or remain within their safe, familiar cocoon.

A young woman from a war-torn republic in the Caucasus leaves home in search of a better future for herself and her family.

These are the two storylines that DBC Pierre launches in alternating and eventually intersecting chapters in his second novel, "Ludmila's Broken English." (His first, "Vernon God Little," won Britain's prestigious Man Booker Prize in 2003.) Though they inhabit very different corners of the globe, twin brothers Blair and Gordon "Bunny" Heath and Ludmila Derev face a similar challenge -- the need to adapt to an alien environment -- and are similarly ill-equipped to face the adventures that will befall them.

Blair and Bunny, born attached at the trunk, are lifelong wards of Britain, sequestered in the Albion House Institution, a "centuries-old jumble of menacing architectures crouched deep in the northern countryside." Acting on the theory that Bunny has become Blair's parasite, the British health service, "newly privatised" in the novel's slightly futuristic setting, arranges for the brothers to be surgically extricated from each other at the age of 33. Once they have recovered, they are dispatched for four weeks' community leave in the bustling capital.

Meanwhile, in the fictitious post-Soviet backwater of Ublilsk Administrative District Forty-One, Ludmila and the rest of her family find themselves similarly cut adrift by a formerly paternalistic state. Farcically, the Soviet Union abdicated its responsibility for the Derevs' well-being to the drunken, incestuous head of the household. Just pages into the novel, Ludmila's grandfather attacks her, leaving her with a sobering choice. "The equation was suddenly this: if Aleksandr sodomised her, he would more quickly be persuaded to sign his pension voucher, and bread would appear on the family table that night. ... And if she wet the air with lusty squeaks, there might even be orange Fanta." Soon after accidentally killing Grandpa by stuffing a glove in his mouth, the young heroine confronts another crude Catch-22: Her grandmother advises her to make up for the deceased's pension by choosing between prostitution and work in the munitions plant. Ludmila lucks out only when the family realizes that the sale of their tractor might temporarily stave off the wolves at the door.

So the novel's three protagonists set forth on what might have been a collision course, if only it didn't take such a very long time for their paths to cross. Blair leaves the institution without looking back, eager to plunge into the sex, hedonism and sheer normality he has been denied. Asexual Bunny would just as soon cower through the month of freedom, eating bacon and sipping gin. Ludmila, after killing a second man (the tractor's buyer) for untoward advances, has the most ambitious plan. She heads to neighboring Kuzhnisk to meet up with boyfriend Misha, a deserting soldier from the local conflict. Together they intend to travel overseas and join the ranks of those who "wouldn't tolerate the inconvenience of war in the place where they lived."

"Ludmila's Broken English" begins boldly, perhaps too boldly; played for laughs, the passage in which Ludmila kills her lustful grandfather is liable to lose a few faint-hearted readers. Subsequent chapters, in which Blair and Bunny quibble endlessly over the possibilities afforded by their liberation, are likely to turn off even more, due to tedium and, for non-Brits at least, an excess of slang and inside jokes. Which is a shame because, after this uneven start, passages of brilliance lie nestled within the novel's dense, darkly comedic middle.

Most successful is Pierre's cutting portrayal of Ublilsk, a civilization in rapid decline. The novelist researched this portion of his book by visiting Armenia and frequenting Russian-bride web sites, and he fixes a keen eye on the degradation and desperation that can exist in forgotten pockets of the world. This description of the region's bread delivery echoes the matter-of-fact bleakness of Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

"As keeper of the bread depot, the last registered business of any kind in the district, Lubov's power was absolute. The depot was a mildewed cockpit from which she piloted the destinies of the district's last mollusc-like inhabitants. Every week, a forlorn box-car was uncoupled from a train on the main line, and pushed on to a disused siding that ran to within four kilometres of Ublilsk. ... Oafish young men met the wagon each week, carrying metal bars and sharpened chains for security. Rumour had it they now also carried a gun. They were Lubov's retarded son and nephew -- for the stigma of feeble blood twice stained her -- and they would heave and pull the wagon as far as the track would allow, then unload the bread into sacks, and carry it over their backs to the depot. ... The town had several simple faces rumoured to be the cost of a dirty loaf."

Eamonn McCabe DBC Pierre received Britain's prestigious Man Booker Prize for his first novel, "Vernon God Little," in 2003.

Even more vivid is Ubli, the tongue Pierre gifts his characters, "said to be the language most exquisitely tailored to the expression of disdain." The Ublis' dialogue is presented as word-for-word translation, a technique that at first feels stilted. But once the reader acclimates to common Ubli turns of phrase such as "gather your cuckoos," "don't toss gas," "cut your hatch," and the ubiquitous "Hoh!" it becomes delightfully daffy, as does the natives' constant pushing of their chins at anyone who gets the slightest bit on their nerves. In Ublilsk, contempt is the local currency; beyond the district's borders, its expression is the only source of power. "Imagine!" Ludmila scolds a sweet young woman who attempts to befriend her in Kuzhnisk. "A new and important visitor and you waste the crucial first hour, the golden hour, with squeakings about yourself!"

Ludmila's unwavering crabbiness lends the story some inspired humor; unfortunately, it stands in the way of her development as a fully rounded character. When a crooked Kuzhnisk biznesmen signs her up on an "Internet introduction service," it's clearly time to start worrying, but the girl's tough exterior impenetrably lacquers over her underlying pathos and naivete. The story of what happens when conjoined twins are separated and cut loose in society should also set the stage for compelling drama, but the brothers remain too rigidly defined -- Blair is the wild one, Bunny the priss -- to retain much interest. And Pierre's failure to recount the specifics of their separation -- we are told that they "shared certain organs," but not how they are divided up on the operating table, or how the twins are (or are not) physically altered by the procedure -- seems an odd oversight for an otherwise scatological writer.

When the twins do finally meet up with Ludmila (yes, the introduction web site plays a role), the results are unsatisfyingly brief. Nearly all of the novel's major characters converge in Ublilsk for a gruesome finale that seems to want to be chilling, but instead comes off feeling flat, even predictable.

Still, those who like their literature in the grotesque vein of William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor will appreciate Pierre's transplantation of the tradition to a very different southern clime. The Caucasus is unexplored territory in contemporary English-language fiction, and in many sections of "Ludmila's Broken English," Pierre does an admirable job of introducing a new audience to the apparent horror and black humor to be found there.

Katherine Shonk is the author of "The Red Passport," a collection of short stories set in contemporary Russia.