The novel is a story of two people set against the background of the years 1968 to 1971 and traces the beginnings of normalization. Their stories diverge and connect to each other as if in a sinusoid, only to meet again. The two protagonists of the story, a technical worker from n.p.Tesla and the editor of a Prague publishing house, are excluded from everyday life and become opponents based on their attitudes towards the occupation by Soviet troops. The sophisticated lustration system of standardization does not give them any options. It affects not only them, but also their loved ones, and they feel alone in the midst of human society. The society around them is subject to the onslaughts of the leadership of the time, and they take it as their loss. It can be said that both will reach the bottom from which it is necessary to bounce back.

Bonako, an association, a settlement, a tramp association, founded in the 1960s, becomes the connecting link. Formerly a free-thinking weekend association of young people, with a relationship to nature and a free life, it is now becoming an oasis, an asylum from the coming social chaos. Bonako helps. In his community, even in such an unfavorable time, he can find his place, where he can resist and at the same time keep his human face. They create an imaginary island in which they live in their own way, despite the time that grips them. The first protagonist, a technician from n.p.Tesla, tries to keep the Bonako community from disappearing, like many others at the time. It tries to make its members find the meaning of life in it, it brings other opponents of the current regime into it, as well as important personalities. The other actor, a former editor, has some reservations about Bonak's activities, even though he likes the Bonak community as such. But he is too self-absorbed, he perceives his ideas and time more sensitively than others. He says that it is not enough, to escape from what is happening in society to the river, to the woods and there to create a secondary, parallel life. It is necessary to fight against him in a different, more active way. He tries to disrupt the gradually strengthening normalization process with smaller solo actions. The story progresses by the fact that he dares to take violent action, which he is convinced will awaken the conscience of society so that it stops being apathetic.

The novel asks the question and perhaps the answer, how to live in that strange totalitarian era, what is right, what is the possibility of remaining pure, unbroken.