This novel is a major literary discovery, and Odrach is drawing
favorable comparisons with such eminent writers as Chekhov and
Solzhenitsyn. Odrach wrote in Ukrainian, while living an exile's life in
Toronto. This remarkable book is a microcosm of Soviet history, and
Odrach provides a first-hand account of events during the Stalinist era
that newsreels never covered. It has special value as a sensitive and
realistic portrait of the times, while capturing the internal drama of
the characters with psychological concision. Odrach creates a powerful
and moving picture, and manages to show what life was really like under
the brutal dictatorship of Stalin, and brings cataclysmic events of
history to a human scale.