The Porcupine by Julian Barnes

"With the brilliant wit and idiosyncratic intelligence that have marked his previous novels - and with a bold, sure grasp of intricate political realities - Julian Barnes now gives us a startling look at the fallout from the recent transformation of Eastern Europe. He begins with a familiar scenario: January 1991 in a former Soviet satellite country. The Communist Party has been toppled. The deposed Party Leader is on trial; his courtroom adversary is the newly appointed Prosecutor General. One man stands for the old ideology, the other for the new deal. But here the familiarity ends. Because as Barnes takes us through the trial - and inside the thoughts of its two protagonists - we begin to sense that the truths and certainties of the present bear a surprising resemblance to the hypocrisies and lies of the past; and that in the end, the accuser, quite unwillingly, might also stand accused. Powerful and unsettling, The porcupine is a novel about the fall of Communism and the hold it retains on its successors; about the disturbingly gray areas hidden in any black and white vision of the world, and the uncertainties of the politics of our time." --