Traveling through the last decade of the 20th century, with all religious, racial, and social passions in turmoil and escalation, The Lost Button becomes more familiar to the reader.

The hero of the novel, born and raised in a multinational, multilingual, and colorful metropolis, New York, sees himself as both conquering, due to the global power of his country, and as a member of various minorities. An American of Jewish descent, with a German mother, a hero of an imperialist war, an artist, eccentric and maladjusted, he despises foreigners and clichés.

Without even realizing it, he also hates himself for his own peculiarities and traits. His brief acquaintance with a Greek middle-class woman and their marriage, an expression of his possessiveness, leads to a constant conflict between the two genders within just a few days. Their clashes undermine his nerves, destabilize his mental balance, and disturb his spiritual quests.

Socially unclassifiable, with no specific political ideology, he remains an artist and unpredictable. His behavior in or out of the psychiatric hospital is unrelated and disconnected from the actual circumstances. I. K., with cinematic speed, elliptical writing, and brilliant dialogues, introduces us to an internally disturbed world, where its expression is the tendency to impose his own character.