Manolo Follano is handsome, fastidious, opinionated, more than a little vain and has built a comfortable provincial life for himself. Despite his inability to master the English language, his architectural design company on the mediterranean coast is thriving, his suits are handsome and his luxury appartment complete. So when his doctor and best friend tells 'Lolo' he is dangerously ill it is, it would seem, the end of everything.

In Alan Warner's fifth novel, however, this devastating news is only the beginning. In a series of vivid, erotic, hilarious flashbacks Manolo plays back his life in glowing technicolour: each wild and glorious set-piece building towards a picture of life - flawed, certainly, but passionate, richly imagined and deeply humane.