There's this woman. She loves me. I don't know who she is. We haven't been introduced. She's sitting across from me in the restaurant. If things should turn out as I hope, we'd come here a lot, and look down our noses at those couples who order the same things....

In ninety-seven short chapters this seductive novel contemplates love and desire and sex and hate, all from the point of view of a manly narrator who considers himself a great and successful lover, a womanizer, a man who may -- or may not -- be in love with all of the women of the world.

There's this woman. She hates me. Her eyes are as grey as mine, and since mine are as grey as my mother's, when our eyes meet, it's like I've made it home....

Intelligent and funny, this book is a great declaration of love and of contempt, and a philosophical exploration of the many postures and pretenses of eros. With his characteristic verbal pyrotechnics, the serenely jaded Esterhazy proves that there will always be another romance, and that love and hate spring from the same inexhaustible font.

There's this woman. She feels about me the way I feel about her. She loves me. She hates me. When she hates me, I love her. When she loves me, I hate her. All other eventualities are out of the question.