Just finished "Confessions of a Fallen Standard-Bearer" by Andrei Makine -- fictionalized memoir of growing up poor in the Soviet Union, by Russian emigre author. Shortish (130 pages), translated from the French; quite clear, sometimes lyrical writing. There is some "musical" content, as the narrator and his best friend were bugler and drummer for a "Young Pioneer" communist youth group. You get a picture of where these ordinary Soviet people were at in the '50s through '80s, and where they had come from, all in a short, lucid piece of fiction. I liked it a lot.