Gennady Trifonov's novel is dedicated to the feeling of love, without which a person cannot succeed. This is an exciting story about a stormy youthful choice, about a mature hero’s difficult discovery of himself, about the impossible victory over the routine of existence and the random time that erodes a person. The novel, which was published in quotes (a tattered magazine publication in the very beginning of the 90s), was promptly translated in the West, where he attracted the favorable attention of leading critics (see excerpts given on the last pages of the book) and in this roundabout way reaches the Russian reader.