The staff of an American magazine based in France puts out its last issue, with stories featuring an artist sentenced to life imprisonment, student riots, and a kidnapping resolved by a chef.

The last conscious moments of Stalin, the solitary tyrant who believes himself immortal. An evocation of the mental chaos of the Little Father of the People who was suffering from delusions of persecution and untold power during the three days of his death throes. And, in fact, is he really dead? In the limbo of the Soviet past, the ghosts from the gulag dream of settling some old scores.

The bonds of a 30-year friendship are tested when Walter's 20-year-old daughter, Clemence, falls in love with his friend Paul.