"Otherworldly forces, dark phantasmagoria, the horrors of underground life crossed with mythical fairytales, all swirl in Alla Gorbunova's audacious and spectacular novel. Children, students, beggars, young poets; Alla Gorbunova's heroes and heroines live their lives intensively, balancing between longing and euphoria in their lives in St. Petersburg. But Gorbunova's stories are far from everyday life: she looks at a fragile and dangerous reality with uncompromising tenderness, above all capable of transforming her characters."--