The novel comprises a series of vignettes telling the story of a character named Jozef Pronek, a Ukrainian born and raised in Bosnia.

The second section follows Pronek as he is a university student in Kyiv in the Soviet Union at the time of the 1991 political turmoil (narrated by his dormitory roommate Victor Plavchuk).

In the third part of the book Pronek is an immigrant in Chicago, where he works in a series of low-paid jobs including working as a Greenpeace canvasser, which enables him to observe the lives of middle-class Chicagoans.

The novel's final chapter, spanning the years 1900 to 2000, is a departure from Pronek's adventures and recounts the story of a Russian White Army officer and his adventures in Harbin and Shanghai.

[3] The Daily Telegraph reported on reviews from several publications with a rating scale for the novel out of "Love It", "Pretty Good", "Ok", and "Rubbish": Daily Telegraph, Guardian, and TLS reviews under "Love It" and Times, Sunday Times, and Independent On Sunday reviews under "Pretty Good".