It was too late, for many it was forever.

The debut novel from a young talent offers a chilling and grotesque mosaic about the search for truth, resistance, and the shadows of the Normalisation era.

During the Normalisation period, a young woman named Veronika begins to look into the life of her recently deceased mother. From initial, vague fragments, she uncovers a detailed account of her parents' resistance activities in the early 1950s, when they were involved in preparations for an anti-communist coup. In doing so, however, she attracts the unwanted attention of the StB (State Security). The story, based partly on true events, alternates between short chapters set in the 1950s and the 1970s. Against this backdrop, it also explores the grotesque nature of a distorted era and, through dreamlike scenes, raises questions of guilt and the reasons for human cruelty. Veronika moves through the world of Normalisation-era comrades much like Alice through the looking glass, and her silent intransigence is imprinted with the portraits of those she meets on her journey. And within this peculiar collage, there are even a few scenes from the life of President Gottwald.