Lyudmila Ulitskaya provides surprising openness about her personal world. She shares stories from her childhood and youth in Moscow, the people and books she loves, her previous work as a geneticist, and how she came to writing. She connects the history of her ancestors to her diary of her cancer illness. Central to her current work are politics and culture in Russia and her critical stance on developments under Putin. In doing so, Ulitskaya offers the reader a perspective on Russian everyday experience that also encompasses questions of morality, ethics, and religion.