Valery Votrin's new novel is a linguistic dystopia. The action of the novel takes place in a state governed by the laws of spelling. The ability to follow the rules of punctuation and spelling determines the social status of citizens, and the need to monitor their compliance creates a developed system of supervisory and regulatory bodies. The two main characters of the novel are a speech therapist embedded in the state system of supervision over language norms, and a journalist expelled for making judgments inconsistent with language policy. One is destined to destroy the state system from within. The other will be the last hope for preserving the country’s language and, as a consequence, its statehood.