Suffering under the Nazis, the beleagured citizens of Prague find themselves aiding and abetting the invaders, and some resisting a regime whose goal is the extermination of all the Jews in Prague

Weil based this novel on his experiences hiding from the Nazis in Czechoslovakia in order to avoid the concentration camps. In recommending the book to FSG for translation into English, Philip Roth wrote: "I think that the book is, without a doubt, one of the outstanding novels I've read about the fate of a Jew and the Jews under the Nazis. I don't really know of one quite like it."