The second part of Tamara Petkevich's memoir, 'Life Is an Unpaired Boot,' was published under the title 'Against the Background of Stars and Fear' and serves as a continuation of the first book. The narrative covers the years following liberation from the camp. Everything that remained unsaid—unfinished fates, unfinished portraits, broken threads of human relationships—has found its conclusion. The longed-for freedom, dreamed of in the camp barracks, restored the right to a normal existence and became the beginning of a new life, but it did not relieve the terrible ghosts of the past or the pain of the inability to reclaim what was forever taken away by captivity. The book was published in 2008, fifteen years after the publication of the first part, and has undergone several editions and been translated into German. A play based on the book was staged in St. Petersburg, and Tamara Petkevich won several literary awards: the Steep Staircase, the Petropol Prize, and the Gogol Prize. After reading the book, Tatyana Gerdt said, 'I'm a very lucky person; God has always sent me wonderful people. But I've had two human upheavals in my life: Tvardovsky and Tamara Petkevich. This isn't camp literature. This is Russian literature. This is what gives me the strength to live.'