Shukshin was also an accomplished short story writer with several volumes of work available in English translation. Your Son and Brother weaves three of his stories-"Stefan," "Snake Venom" and "Ignat Returned Home"-into a semi-autobiographical film about Siberian village life. To heighten the authenticity, Shukshin set the film in the very village where he was raised, using friends and acquaintances as bit players. A spring morning brings an unexpected guest to the cottage of Yermolay Voyevodin, a peasant with four sons and now growing old-it's his eldest son, Stepan, escaped from prison just three months before his release. After a day of jubilation, a police officer retrieves him for a stiffer two-year term. The fate of two other brothers who have migrated to the city then wends its way into the story. Maxim, a construction worker, is caught in a bureaucratic quagmire, trying to procure a special medicine of snake venom for his ailing mother. Brother Ignat, a successful wrestler, flaunts his sudden prestige by bringing the medicine and other scarce gifts home for a summer visit. The episodes are simply stated and heartfelt in their humor, and all the more interesting for the cache of emotion they contain. As Ron Holloway writes: "Each figure is of flesh-and-blood, the father the most commanding of all. The lyrical quality of the film-still-life pastoral shots, the beauty of the landscape, the soundtrack of lilting music in the beginning to match the peasant songs and dances at a village gathering later, as the day wears on-sustains the fragility of the stories and brings unexpected depth to intimate family moments." As the film ends, a letter-signed 'Your Son and Brother'-arrives from the eldest sibling now back in prison, adding strong emotional closure to an apparent lack of plot.