All skin colors, all possible beliefs. Small lives in small apartments, wild streets. This is where the story of four people, two couples, unfolds. Someone has children, a steady job, a decent salary and a small car. Someone worse job, no children, no apartment. No one is happy. It's summer, it's hot, the dust on the sidewalks, the dust in your eyes. It's a different neighborhood, the house is upstairs, and yet still beautiful, Annie, in the bathtub, with lines of cocaine on the mirror and her ex-boyfriend seated opposite, embarrassed. Somewhere it all meets and intersects, but nothing is resolved. A novel almost like a bulletin board: photos from one of the holidays and newspaper clippings. Parties with acquaintances, a criminal case from a store on the street corner, an injured dog, maybe even dead. Laughter of spoiled children, silence after the aborted. Mothers always just alive, too alive. Zadie Smith also pays attention to the multicultural environment, the encounter and the coexistence of different worlds in one small area. However, it is not in the center of attention here either, it is a collage from which a complete picture emerges. And it's a picture - as usual - truly tragicomic.