The Loves of Faustyna — Nina Fitzpatrick

When a cloud in the shape of human buttocks appears over Krakow in 1967 and lingers over the city, residents believe the world is coming to an end. For demure, bookish psychology student Faustyna, this is unthinkable - because if the world ends she will die a virgin. Within hours she is off to the Europa Hotel to bare her own shapely bottom during a tryst she arranges with a Russian dignitary, beginning a riotous sexual odyssey that takes her up and down the social scale and across the political spectrum of Communist Poland in its dying decade. In the years that follow, Faustyna finds herself playing many roles - housewife, lover, mother, and psychologist - in a country that has gone mad. Baffled and perplexed, she finds that the only way to survive is to throw herself into the great collective insanity. But through the triumphs and tribulations she is always, hilariously, Faustyna.