The Red Laugh is an utterly harrowing and nightmarish depiction of a sort of apocalypse that springs from the chaos, blood, and misery of Russia's humiliating defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, in language that prophetically echoes the horrors to come during the First World War. Centered on two nameless characters, the first a soldier narrator and then later his civilian brother, The Red Laugh presents themes of violence, war, madness, ghosts, and even the quite literal return of the dead. From time to time, we meet the indescribably horrible Red Laugh itself...
