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 hes caught between his fantasies and a truth that might be just as inconvenient as the name hes 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 novelthe only one published by the author during his lifetimeis a miracle of style, subtlety, wit, and grace, all employed by the mischievous P. to mask his collusion in his own amorous catastrophes.