A black comedy on the human condition, this book presents Vladimír Páral’s darkly comic vision of life in an apartment building that is owned by a chemical factory. The downtrodden residents struggle and scheme to move into better apartments using sex, violence, and deceit to get what they want. In the process, it becomes apparent that they are no better and may be worse than those that they have pushed aside. This novel brilliantly asserts that ideologies may change, but human nature never does.