Summer in Rome and the Eternal City glitters with an elusive, definitive beauty. Sixty-five-year-old Jep Gamberdella still exerts a charm undiminished by the passing years. In his youth he wrote a novel The Human Apparatus, but hasn't written a book since. He has become a very important journalist who mixes with Roman high society and is seen at all the right parties. His life is a succession of meetings and eccentric parties, of which he is the protagonist. Cynical, disillusioned and unwell, Jep witnesses the crisis of a society that seems to have transformed men into monsters. Only the power of the innocent love of his youth will enable Jep leave behind the state of resignation that he seems to have chosen as a way of life. Perhaps it is time for him to start writing again.