As the Nazis occupy Poland, a young doctor joins the staff of an insane asylum only to find a world of pain and absurdity to match the horrors outside.
It is 1939. The Nazis have just begun their occupation of Poland. Stefan Trzyniecki, a young doctor, alienated from his family and unsettled by the fate of his country, accepts an invitation to join the staff of a hospital for the mentally disturbed.

The mayhem inside the walls of the institution is matched only by the chaos outside. Stefan's colleagues are hardly less deranged than their patients: surgeons obsessed with death, doctors haunted by the past, and nurses infected with cruelty. By the time the horrors of the war creep past the doors of Stefan's supposed sanctuary, he is forced to confront uncomfortable truths about the state of his profession—and face inevitable consequences about his own part in the madness.

From Kafka Prize winner Stanislaw Lem, this semi-autobiographical novel is "an assured, well-measured performance" (The Washington Post Book World).

"[A] gripping story of a young Polish doctor's attempt, following the Nazi invasion of 1939, to make sense of his world . . . Highly recommended for all." —Library Journal