In the center of the plot is a young lawyer Yevhenii Rafalovich, who arrives in a small Galician town and becomes a public defender. There he meets the love of his youth. But the former lover is trapped in an unhappy marriage with a sadistic husband: the abuse and humiliation continue for years, and the woman, not having the strength to escape, dares to commit murder in desperation. And this will be only the beginning of events that will shake the sleepy town.
Against the background of these events, Franko draws psychological images and the deep motivation of the characters, and in parallel with the development of the plot, skillfully depicts the choice of the main character - despite everything, to find a way out of the closed circle, where the weak always lose, and the gullible become victims of fraud and manipulation.
About the Gift Classic series
The Gift Classic series will include the most famous works of Ukrainian literature. In this series, the emphasis is on the aesthetics of the publication — elafin binding with silver embossing, lassé, thick paper, and colored endpapers. Each edition will be supplemented with two articles from well-known artists, critics, and experts. One of them is an explanation of the text and its place in Ukrainian literature by well-known literary experts. The second article is about how the classic text was still embodied in other genres of art - in cinema, theater, and painting. What is special about the film production "Shadows" by Serhii Paradzhanov? Why did the modern TV series "To Catch the Kaidash" affect the audience so much? How did theater directors rethink the works of Ivan Franko and Lesia Ukrainka?
