In 1906 Gorky went on a fund raising trip, on behalf of the Bolsheviks, to the United States. During the trip he wrote his novel The Mother when visiting the Adirondack Mountains. Gorky also created a scandal because he was traveling with actress Maria Andreyeva, his lover, instead of his wife. Despite feeling contempt for the bourgeois soul, Gorky came to admire the American spirit.
The book The 100-Year-Old Who Climbed Out Through the Window and Disappeared focuses on lampooning the espionage genre and parody the mystery/chase genres.