The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight is the debut novel by acclaimed short story master Gina Ochsner. In a crumbling apartment building in post-Soviet Russia, there’s a ghost who won’t keep quiet. Mircha fell from the roof and was never properly buried, so he sticks around to
heckle the living: his wife, Azade; Olga, a translator/censor for a
military newspaper; Yuri, an army veteran who always wears an aviator’s
helmet; and Tanya.

Tanya carries a notebook wherever she goes, recording her observations and her dreams of escaping her job at the All-Russia All-Cosmopolitan Museum. When the museum’s director hears of a mysterious American group seeking to fund art in
Russia, he charges Tanya with luring them to the museum—which holds a
fantastic and terrible collection of art knockoffs created by using the
tools at hand, from foam to chewing gum, Popsicle sticks to tomato juice. But
while Tanya scrambles to save her dreams and her neighbors, she might
also be getting closer to finding love right in her own courtyard.