After a century of brooding and talking telepathically to his Mausoleum janitor from his glass coffin, Vladimir Lenin awakens—alive and bewildered in the modern world. While his sudden resurrection sends shockwaves across the globe, nobody is really sure what to do with him, and it doesn’t take long for Lenin to realize he has no place in Putin’s Russia. Determined to reclaim power in the name of the workers and peasants—erm, middle-class citizens—he sets his sights on an unlikely new goal: the American presidency. As for Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution. “No Person except a natural-born Citizen shall be eligible to the Office of President,” let his supporters take care of that.

Armed with old ideals and a flair for reinvention, Lenin becomes a sensation—part political maverick, part global spectacle. While his rise captivates the masses and brings on board of his election committee American billionaires and ordinary mortals attracted to him like a moth to the flames, not everyone is thrilled by his resurrections. Among them is Dr. Litvinova, a brilliant scientist obsessed with Lenin’s image, who may hold the key to both his miraculous revival and his ultimate downfall. But Lenin is a new and old phoenix. He emerges from ashes again and again, and burns others to ashes in the process.

Mark Budman grew up in the shadow of Lenin back in the Soviet Union. That novel was in the making his entire life, or at least since he learned how to write.