An anti-utopian novel about a society where success depends on the degree of a person’s likeness to the Model Face. Changing from time to time, the Model Face overturns the entire social structure. Latynin’s novel predicted the Gorbachev era and subsequent social turmoil. Throughout, Latynin demonstrates a faithfulness to high moral ideas despite the cruel society he depicts. “One of the most original of the post-realists of Russian Literature since the mid-1980s.”—Claude Frioux, Flammarion.