When Mayakovsky, poet of the Soviet revolution, fell in love with Lili Brik, he immediately moved into a hotel room to be near her and her husband Osip. Soon the three were living togetheran experiment in living that defied Bolshevik standards of morality. Osip Brik became the poet's editor and publisher. The trio remained intimate friends for 15 years, a tangled web of relationships that embraced other lovers despite jealousy and spiritual crises. Since the Soviet Union purportedly is trying now to eradicate all trace of the existence of this "decadent, bourgeois" household, this first complete edition of the correspondence between Mayakovsky and Lili Brik is well timed. The letters are passionate, whimsical, impromptu and clearly not intended for posterity. They reveal that the futurist poet, who killed himself in 1930, was as much a high-stakes gambler in love as in politics and art.
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