A survivor of the labor camps, Vytautas Vargalys is a physically and mentally damaged man obsessed with finding out what's "really going on" in Soviet-ruled Vilnius. He's stuck working an absurd job--creating a digital catalog for a library that no one is allowed to access--but finds meaning by tracking all of the so-called clues about "them" that he uncovers wherever he looks: in books, in the death of his best friend, and in the beautiful women sent to work at the library. One of these beautiful women is Lolita, an aptly named seductress with a mysterious past and a growing love for Vargalys. Their tragic relationship forms the crux of this novel, which is told through four characters, and chronicles the surreal absurdities and horrors of life under Soviet rule. The bulk of the novel is a lyrical, engaging depiction of Vilnius seen through the eyes of Vargalys as his grasp on reality begins to slip. By turns literary, shocking, and philosophical, this section of the novel earned Gavelis his reputation and led to Vilnius Poker being referred to as a "turning point in Lithuanian literature."