About the book: 2015 / In Emil Braginsky's play, at first glance, there is not much fun - after many years of living together, the Antoshin family is experiencing a crisis that threatens a final break. However, the action, rich in irony and comedic situations, has a light breath. Starting with the fact that, leaving for a young lover, the wife immediately, out of the blue, carefully introduces her friend Larisa to her husband - as the most suitable replacement in her opinion. Well-honed, elegant dialogues - the picks between the perplexed Antoshin and Larisa, who besieges him - constitute the main feature of the style of the subtle psychologist Braginsky. Being in a difficult phase of his life (Antoshin is painfully experiencing a break with his beloved wife, Larisa is unsuccessfully trying to find a new father for her son), each of the heroes, nevertheless, seems to be hovering above reality in their romantic fantasies. It is this common feature of theirs - their wild imagination - that will imperceptibly and gradually bring the heroes closer together and push them into each other’s arms. Soaring adults, like Chagall, are landed by children beyond their years. The pragmatic daughter of the Antoshins, student Zhenya, and her boyfriend, who is keen on yoga, like wise elders, calmly look at their frolicking parents (which also gives a comic effect) and accept them for who they are. The comedic component competes with the lyrical line: every now and then Antoshin’s chaotic wife bursts into the action, a variation of the wife-mother archetype, bearing the same name as the textbook Margarita Khobotova, who totalitarianly dominated her ex-husband in the film “Pokrovsky Gates”. In his works, Emil Braginsky unobtrusively, latently preaches true values, urging readers to appreciate those who are close to them and not to lose the meaning of their existence in the pursuit of illusory pleasures.