That its title is an allusion to the global sex trade becomes clear only about a quarter of the way through Yelena Moskovich’s debut novel. “A woman from Eastern Europe can be sold for 800 US dollars to, say, Amsterdam or Prague or Istanbul,” explains one of the characters. Brief chapters introduce seemingly unrelated characters. We meet Beatrice, an enigmatic jazz singer so beautiful that her family nickname is Miss Monroe and men drool at her in the streets of Paris. Cesar is an aspiring actor who left his native Mexico to escape the homophobic taunts of his brothers and is hoping to land a part in a telenovela. There’s also Polina, who seems to materialise out of Beatrice’s reflection in the mirror; Sabine, a cruel blonde in a wheelchair who connects Beatrice to Cesar; and all the Natashas, or sex-trafficked women trapped in a “box-shaped windowless room”. This is a surreal, unknowable novel, reminiscent of a David Lynch film. Written in a Cubist jumble of voices, languages and textures, the pleasure’s not so much in the story but in how it is told.
