The first venture into fiction of Stanislav Komárek is a novel, and one with generational ambitions. It is set in the 1980s, for the most part in Vienna, a world which the author knows well from his years as an émigré. The plot is a total invention, although the bizarre particulars and overall impression of setting are, with a few exceptions, true to life. It is the author’s intention neither to cause offence nor to convince his readership of a Great World Conspiracy which holds us all in its thrall.