UDC 82-3BBK 84.R7P 58Valery Popov. Excessive virtuosity. - St. Petersburg. Writers' Union of St. Petersburg, 2012. - 472 pp. ISBN 978-5-4311-0033-8 Published with the support of the Committee for Press and Interaction with the Mass Media of St. Petersburg© Valery Popov, text© Publishing House of the Writers' Union of St. St. Petersburg Valery Popov is a recognized master of St. Petersburg prose. He is subject to a variety of genres - from tragedy to grotesque. This book of his contains precisely comic, grotesque things. The incredible situations that Popov’s heroes find themselves in are by no means far-fetched, but are taken from the very depths of life. They absolutely accurately “photograph” all the weirdness of the world around us: this is exactly how we happened to live. These stories from Popov not only make us laugh - they are completely reliable, they show both our amazing times and the character of the hero, who always manages to be active, worrying about everyone and trying to help everyone. In Popov, the unequal struggle of the characters with difficult circumstances has a tragicomic character, thanks to which our troubles and adversities do not seem so terrible and insurmountable. “Laughter conquers everything!” - this is the main creative postulate of Valery Popov.

A.Yu. Aryev, co-editor of Zvezda magazine