As nation after nation goes into lockdown due to the pandemic Sacha Senderovsky invites his oldest friends to make use of the bungalows on the land of the house he shares with his wife, Masha, and daughter, Natasha. In Our Country Friends, the friends all know one another and Sasha has also invited an actor as he is currently working on his script and hopes to get the actor's input. Sasha worries over buying in supplies of food and drink and collects Ed, who was born in Seoul, from the train station. Karen who also has Korean parents chose to drive and meets Natasha singing to the sheep as she nears the house. Sasha then collects Vinod who has Indian parents from the bus station and the group is almost complete. They are all arriving shortly after a storm has caused damage and brought down branches on the land around the house. Sasha was born in Leningrad as was the author Gary Shteyngart who writes with the authenticity readers will expect. It's going to be fascinating to read on and discover how matters progress with so many people confined to the one place for an indeterminate length of time. The cover is a brilliant depiction of a house in a bubble which is so appropriate for a time when we were all in lockdown.