THE

GENIUS
UNDEЯ THE

T ABLE
Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain

EUGENE YELCHIN
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
 With a masterful mix of comic timing and disarming poignancy,
Newbery Honoree Eugene Yelchin offers a memoir of
growing up in Cold War Russia.

THE GENIUS UNDEЯ THE TABLE

GROWING UP BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN

Drama, family secrets, and a KGB spy in his own kitchen! How will Yevgeny
ever fulfill his parents’ dream that he become a national hero when he
doesn’t even have his own room? He’s not a star athlete or a legendary ballet
dancer. In the tiny apartment he shares with his Baryshnikov-obsessed
mother, poetry-loving father, continually outraged grandmother, and safely
talented brother, all Yevgeny has is his little pencil, the underside of a
massive table, and the doodles that could change everything. With equal
amounts charm and solemnity, award-winning author and artist Eugene
Yelchin recounts in hilarious detail his childhood in Cold War Russia as
a young boy desperate to understand his place in his family. Yelchin
re-creates the original art from under the table as he unfolds a spellbinding
tale about a childhood spent asking questions with no answers.

EUGENE YELCHIN is the coauthor and illustrator of the 2018

National Book Award Finalist The Assassination of Brangwain
Spurge, cowritten with M. T. Anderson. A Tomie dePaola
Illustrator Award winner, he also received a Newbery Honor
for his novel Breaking Stalin’s Nose. Born in
Leningrad, Russian-American Eugene Yelchin now
lives in Topanga, California, with his family.

ON SALE OCTOBER 5, 2021

HC: 978-1-5362-1552-6
$16.99 ($22.99 CAN)
Age 10 and up · 208 pages
Also available as an e-book and in audio
# geniusunderthetable
 From the Book
My family had come to Moscow to watch my older
brother, Victor, compete in a figure-skating competition,
but Dad said that it was our patriotic duty to see Lenin’s
mummy first. No one in the long line was allowed to
complain. Except for my mother, of course.
“What are you complaining about, citizen?” the security
guard whispered to Mom. He looked nervous that she was
making a scene in the most sacred place in our country.
“Complaining?” my mother shouted. “You didn’t hear
me complaining yet, young man! I demand
to know your name and rank! Write it down,
Victor. Who’s in charge around here?”
At last the line began to move, and
Mom, having let off a little steam, became
perfectly calm. She took my hand and
we stepped into the mausoleum
by the rules, in silence.

★
 Acclaim for
The Assassination of
M. T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin
HC: 978-0-7636-9822-5 • $24.99 ($29.99 CAN)
PB: 978-1-5362-1309-6 • $14.99 ($19.99 CAN)
AGES 10–14 • 544 PAGES
“Told in narrative and illustrated pages—Werfel’s
experiences and Spurge’s visual dispatches back
home—the story by Anderson and Yelchin blends the
absurd and the timely to explore commonality, long-
standing conflict, and who gets to write a world’s
history.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Yelchin’s black pen-and-ink illustrations, in
Medieval style, capture the humor and fantastical
details of the text, as well as Brangwain’s changing
view of goblins. Biting and hysterical, Brangwain and
Werfel’s adventure is one for the history books.”
—Booklist (starred review)
Brangwain Spurge
A National Book Award Finalist
A New York Times Book Review Notable Children’s
Book of the Year
An American Library Association Notable
Children’s Book
Named a Best Book of the Year by National Public
Radio, the Boston Globe, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus
Reviews, and BookPage
“If Hieronymus Bosch and Terry Gilliam had a
love child, it couldn’t be more twisted and brilliant
than the silent visual sequences you’ll find on these
pages.” —NPR Books
“A smart and smarting history with its consequential
warning: Truthfully recall the past to change the
future.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“This beautifully crafted, thrilling fantasy entertains
even as it offers a powerful lesson about national
narratives, the power of myth, and the difficulty of
acknowledging ‘the other.’ A perfect novel for our
times.” —The Buffalo News
“Together, Anderson and Yelchin craft
something that feels impossible, a successfully
unorthodox epistolary, pictorial, and prose
narrative that interrogates the cultural ramifications
of unchallenged viewpoints and the government
violence they abet even as it recounts the comedic
blunderings of a spy mission gone wrong. Monty
Python teams up with Maxwell Smart for a
wrestling match with Tolkien—splendid.” —Kirkus
Reviews (starred review)