Klaus and Erika Mann, the incredible children of the famous author, describe with youthful grace but also with a critical eye their experiences from a journey around the world, their impressions of the customs and traditions of America and Asia, their encounters with literary and artistic personalities such as Emil Ludwig and Upton Sinclair, and especially of the Seventh Art. Greta Garbo, Ramón Novarro, Adolphe Menjou, Pola Negri, Conrad Veidt, Clara Bow, director Murnau, and many other mythical figures parade through a literary Sunset Boulevard, giving the reader a phantasmagorical image of pre-war Hollywood. With a corresponding acumen and humor, they sketch the exotic Hawaii, the mysterious Far East, and present a vivid picture of communist Moscow.

However, the charm of the book lies mainly in the direct and spontaneous but at the same time penetrating observance of the authors, which they express carelessly "with all the audacity of youth," as one critic commented. Klaus Mann was twenty years old at that time and Erika Mann was twenty-two.