We know much more about the body than about the soul. No one can draw an atlas of the soul. Only the border space can sometimes be caught. There, near this boundary, as one approaches it, such vibrations begin, such subtle details are revealed, about which it is almost impossible to speak in our beautiful but limited language. A risky, very dangerous approach. But this space attracts you more the longer you live, the stronger it becomes." Lyudmila Ulitskaya
In living life, we constantly encounter boundaries - internal, external, conditional, real. Boundaries "expand", "blur", "are overcome", "demand respect", some are set by ourselves, others are marked by states, society, or traditions. It is precisely the philosophical and humanistic understanding of this concept that occupies Ulitskaya.
The collection includes two cycles of stories. In the stories of the cycle "Girlfriends", the key motive, the engine of the narrative, is love, perhaps the main weapon that sweeps away the boundaries between people. Through physical and blood love, late, unexpected, gradual, empathic, the heroes find the missing part of their soul, the strength needed for life. Many stories in the collection have personal dedications.
In the second cycle "About the Body of the Soul", Lyudmila Ulitskaya approaches the most sacred boundary - the boundary of life, more precisely of physical existence. Is there a boundary between life and death? Or is death the boundary of life? And what is there, beyond the boundary of physical existence? Lyudmila Ulitskaya catches her heroes at those turning points in their lives when the physical and the spiritual are practically inseparable.