Boris Kharlamov managed, with the help of a unique genre - a novel in dialogues - to convey lively colloquial speech, habits, and the appearance of characters - young people living in the era of "gangster capitalism" of the nineties. The main character of the novel "Onion Woe" - Maxim Lukov - is not he is afraid to take risks, knows how to love and tries with all his might to survive in difficult times without losing his inherent optimism. “I have such a life, Nastya, I am floating with the flow in a stormy river, I often hit rocks, I don’t have the strength or time to get ashore and look around...”