This gripping memoir conveys brilliantly the everyday atmosphere of a Soviet world of privilege about to be destroyed from a unique angle of vision: Razgon was living among the party elites as the Stalinist terror of 1937 began. As David Remnick writes, “Razgon’s extraordinary memoir was one of the most exhilarating moments in the return of history to Russia. His life, in its tragedy and endurance, relects an entire epoch. He is a master of the character study, and his memoir of the life of the elite in the camps is like no other.”