A sweeping family saga set in a Serbian provincial community, the novel traces the fortunes of a patriarchal household whose members struggle with entrenched customs, personal ambitions and the sweep of political and social change; through intimate domestic conflicts and moral compromises it examines how family loyalties, local traditions and emerging ideologies shape identity and destiny, exposing the tensions between old certainties and the demands of modernization while offering a vivid, unsparing portrait of village life and its costs.