Unable to resist temptation

Wandering around a bookshop yesterday I was unable to not buy the book that had this quote on the back page
"Do you see that, Alex? "asked Dominick. I could see the long black pole of the Letna metronome jutting into the sky.
"There used to be a statue of Stalin there. But they blew it up, and now we have the metronome that almost never works."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"I like to call it progress."

It's from A Cure for Solitude by David Whiteman. Now I just need to read the rest of it