Michael Cunningham is one of the most talented prose writers in modern America; he rarely pleases readers with new books, but each of them becomes an event. In the latest novel, By Night Fall (2010), the main character is Peter Harris, an art gallery owner who despairs of finding real beauty in contemporary art, where kitsch reigns supreme. His usual life with constant problems (work, difficult relationship with his daughter, “midlife crisis”, etc.) unexpectedly explodes with the arrival of Mizzy, his wife’s younger brother. Forty-year-old Peter is blinded by Mizzina's beauty - his young brother-in-law becomes his favorite work of art, in him he finds the ideal embodiment of perfection and freedom, which he himself is deprived of. However, Peter's erotic infatuation with a cynical and confused drug addict threatens him with the collapse of his inner world and provokes a crisis in family relationships...