Two novels that make up a single-volume book give an idea of ​ ​ the breadth of both the thematic range and the geography of the scenes characteristic of the work of Yuri Slepukhin. The heroes of "Cimmerian Summer" - our contemporaries, Muscovites and Leningraders, people of different ages and different professions - to one degree or another are involved in a long-standing family drama. In "Southern Cross," the author, who himself lived for many years in Latin America, talks about the difficult fate of a Russian man who went through the front, captivity, participation in the French Resistance and the strength of circumstances abandoned in the post-war years far into a foreign land - so that there even deeper and sharper feel the whole meaning of the concept "Fatherland."