A wonderfully funny yet tender evocation of the hedonistic 1980s. A young gay British man comes to 1980s Paris to teach English and to taste the erotic life that has eluded him in Britain. He suddenly finds himself in the midst of a sexual free-for-all beyond his wildest dreams - and then the AIDS epidemic hits. A beautiful, profane and witty novel from one of the masters of the form. ''It stands with Hemingway or Fitzgerald's depictions of the Jazz Age as a cool yet passionate testament to an age now vanished.' Scotland on Sunday; 'This is a disturbing, brave and very well written book.' Spectator; 'A stylistic tour de force... it is life, not death that this novel affirms.' Sunday Times; 'Adair is a writer of undoubted class and has the gift of sharp portraiture needed to make a picaresque novel sing.' Sunday Telegraph'