Although the residents of the Little Black House, which was long ago purchased by the tailor Vodrážka, live in the dramatically changing world of the twentieth century, they are affected only obliquely by all the social upheavals. Over the generations, the little house has become the centre of their universe, as if it exerted over them some kind of secret force … But the book’s main theme is neither the family nor social development, but rather hidden aspects of the everyday, the way in which the fibres of fate are bound together. Though ordinary life in small-town South Bohemia has changed little in a hundred years, the author’s take on things – enriched by historical and etymological explanations and essay-style observations – makes of this a gripping story something more enthralling than many an event of “world” significance.