Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0312140924, Paperback)

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Publishers Weekly Best Book

Pavel is a middle-aged man, a once-promising, award-winning documentary filmmaker, who is forced to survive by working as a cameraman for the state-run television station under Czechoslovakia's repressive regime. He dreams of one day making a film—a searing portrait of his times—that the authorities would never allow. When the communist regime collapses, Pavel finds himself unprepared for the new world of supposedly unlimited freedom, and unable to make the film he has always wanted to make. His dilemma—that of a man choosing between the ideals and temptations of freedom—informs every sentence of this important novel.