May I Be Happy?

This audiobook is about women born in the USSR who were given “to live in an era of change.” As teenagers, they dreamed of a bottle of “Maybe”—they made lipstick themselves, sewed clothes that were indistinguishable from the creations of fashion designers, because in the era of shortages you couldn’t buy all of that—and they really wanted to be beautiful.

As adults, they gave birth to children in Soviet maternity hospitals where sometimes the only medicines were bandages and brilliant green. They stood in endless lines and saw Paris only on the program “International Panorama.” But they didn’t lose optimism and femininity—they fell in love, parted, and did reckless things for the people they loved.

So this audiobook is about happy women. About the fact that to those who love life, in the end, life answers in kind.