The heroes of Alexander Rakhvalov are people who have broken the law, have served their sentences, and are in a difficult period of rethinking and rebuilding their lives. Among them are teenagers, about whom the author writes with special emotional excitement. The writer is far from dispassionate in examining the causes of personal and social troubles. With civic passion and human pain, he speaks not only about the degree of guilt of each of the heroes, but also about the guilt of society, all its members, who bear their share of responsibility for the fate of their neighbor.