Maya Kucherskaya - prose writer, literary critic; author of the novel “God of Rain” (Student Booker Prize) and the book “Modern Patericon. Reading for the discouraged" ("Bunin Prize"). "Adultery is vulgar entertainment for the inhabitants of women's novels," says Aunt Motya (or Marina), a former teacher of Russian and literature, now a proofreader for a weekly newspaper and the heroine of Kucherskaya's novel of the same name. . But suddenly Marina herself finds herself in the center of events: a love affair that she longs for and is ashamed of, a stuffy family life, the crazy rhythm of the newspaper... Suddenly, the notes of a rural teacher fall into her hands: the unhurried life of a district town, pictures of the disappeared Russian way of life, scenes from the Nizhny Novgorod fair and tea plantations on the island of Ceylon. All that remains is to understand where is real life and where is its imitation.