"The Ivankiad" is a fitting sequel to Voinovich's "The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Pvt. Ivan Chonkin."… It is another example of satire at its best…. By coincidence, "The Ivankiad" appears at a moment when the roman à clef is flooding the US market. It is not exactly a roman à clef, but it is "the inside story" of an authentic Soviet apparatchik.

The term "Ivankiad" is rooted in Ivan'ko, at once a person with connections as well as a personification of connections. According to Voinovich, "He is legion." It is Ivan'ko who intrigues his way into the delicate layers of decision-making in order to obtain more living space: one half of a two-room apartment which has been lawfully promised to the narrator, Voinovich himself.

The theme of a ludicrous struggle for a Moscow apartment is not new, but in the hands of Voinovich it acquires a new dimension: documentation...