This is a book in which Valentin Kataev cites episodes from his own biography, paints a panorama of Russian literary life in the twenties of the twentieth century in broad masks and shares many details about many famous writers and poets whom he met during his long and eventful life. Among the heroes of the book - naturally, under recognizable pseudonyms - are Vladimir Mayakovsky, Yuri Olesha, Sergei Yesenin, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Bulgakov, Osip Mandelstam and Yevgeny Petrov.