In a picaresque journey from youth to old age, P., a wealthy businessman who abhors his real name, tells the stories of his three greatest passions, his three greatest affairs, his three most
erotic encounters: a married woman, a demanding mistress, and a childlike bride. But each of these three women hides a secret, and soon P. finds that he�� caught between his fantasies and a
truth that might be just as inconvenient as the name he�� forbidden his lovers to speak. With no proper antecedent save perhaps the works of Vladimir Nabokov, Machado de Assis, and the early
Philip Roth, this short novel��he only one published by the author during his lifetime��s a miracle of style, subtlety, wit, and grace, all employed by the mischievous P. to mask his collusion
in his own amorous catastrophes.
