Bulgakov's first novel follows the Turbin family, a young doctor, his brother and his sister, living in Kyiv during the winter of 1918, when the city is torn between rival armies and political powers. Officers, soldiers and friends gather in the family's warm apartment while the world outside grows dangerous and uncertain. Drawing on the author's own youth, the book portrays ordinary people who are loyal to a vanished order and trying to keep their homes, honour and affection intact as history sweeps around them. It later became the basis for his famous play The Days of the Turbins.