novel is the life story of Paul Roberts, who we first meet as a 19-year-old Sussex University undergraduate returning to his parents' house in the leafy southern suburbs of London (Sutton, in Surrey, is suggested as a model.)

In a random-draw mixed doubles, he is thrown together with Susan MacLeod, a 48-year-old married woman with two daughters older than Paul.

Paul departs and embarks on foreign travels, picking up jobs and women at random.

As Paul narrates his life in this book, he freely admits that memory is unreliable and he may not be telling us the truth.

In the last few pages, as Paul says his final goodbye to Susan, now sedated in a psychiatric hospital, he reverts to the first person.