The new novel by the famous American prose writer Nathan Englander (b. 1970) is a sharp and ironic story about the tossing between modern reality and the testaments of our ancestors. After the death of his father, the hero makes a pragmatic decision - to use the services of a special service: reading a funeral prayer for the deceased. However, having transferred this onerous responsibility to others, he finds himself in the position of the biblical Esau, who sold his birthright for lentil stew. And now neither love for family, nor common sense, nor need - nothing will stop him in his attempt to find what he has lost, and at the same time turn the lives of other characters upside down.