The author, a post 1989 journalist, decided to dig into his family's history in Russia, finding that his grandfather was a victim of the 1937 Stalinist purge, grandma spent time in a gulag, and that his bickering parents had, in the 1960s, endured a Cold War version of Romeo and Juliet. This is the "one death is a tragedy" amongst the millions, allowing us to see the effect of the purges on the everyday lives of Russians for three generations. The author also came to realize that there were solid reasons his mother is a paranoid control freak, and why you shouldn't take food off grandma's plate.