Sofia Petrovna

"Sofia Petrovna is Lydia Chukovskaya's fictional account of the Great Purge. Her eponymous heroine is a Soviet Everywoman, a doctor's widow who works as a typist in a Leningrad publishing house. As her beloved son is caught up in the maelstrom, Sofia Petrovna joins the long lines of women waiting outside the prosecutor's office, hoping against hope for good news. Confronted with a world that makes no moral sense, Sofia Petrovna goes mad, a madness which manifests itself in delusions little different from the lies those around her tell every day to protect themselves."--back cover.