Walter Stanley, a middle-aged, mildly obsessive and slightly above average American political science professor, thinks he may have made a mistake. Why did he choose Russia as the site for his sabbatical? He's tired of the drunken camaraderie; he finds the crowded buses a Hobbesian world writ small; and he frequently becomes irate stepping in dog feces in the halls of his apartment. Away from his wife and family, he meets Lientjies Steenkamp, a beautiful, young South African Communist, who he becomes infatuated with upon their first meeting. Can a slightly burned out, tenured college professor find happiness in a dreary society with a woman fifteen years his junior?
