A novel by a well-known Moscow writer, a brilliant stylist and master of plot-and-psychological prose, tells the story of a young woman of an adventurous kind. Her fate intertwines both with the August events of 1991 and with the time of Russia’s post-Communist reconfiguration: the heroine does business, becomes a pawn in the machinations of her partners, works in the presidential administration, and is an escort. Her sexual openness becomes the cause of unexpected and dramatic life collisions into which she gets drawn.