Can a philologist who graduated from a peripheral university make a dizzying career? It turns out that he can, but before he sits in the chair of the editor-in-chief of a popular magazine, he will have to deliver cigarettes and booze to outlets, abandon his family, commit betrayal, and more than one. But all this is normal, in the order of things, like everyone else, and it’s unlikely that the hero should be accused of immorality. He is a product of his time, the countdown of which began... And when did it actually begin, this countdown? In the 1930s, which are usually talked about in tragic tones (and about which the hero’s grandfather writes in his book)? In the late 1950s, when the thaw came? In the stagnant 1970s, when the hero of the novel was growing up and gaining experience? Or later, when perestroika broke out and paradise opened up for the reading public, many previously prohibited works were published? But each work has its own draft, which may differ decisively from the final text. And if you consider your own life as a work, then it may turn out to be just a draft.