Lyudmila Stern was friends with the young poet Osya Brodsky back in Russia, where he was not published, branded a “parasite” and a “drone,” tried and exiled as a parasite, and then pushed into exile. She was friends with the famous poet Joseph Brodsky in the West, where he became a genius award winner, an American poet laureate and a Nobel Prize laureate in literature. Stern's book is not a literary biography of Brodsky. With great warmth, she paints a contradictory but truthful image of a man who remained her friend for almost forty years. Stern's memoirs provide a portrait of a generation of Russian intellectuals who lived through years of artistic quest and political persecution. Although this book is written about specific people, it reads like a gripping story. Her episodes, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, are illustrated with photographs from the author’s personal archive.