Haffner is charming, morally suspect, sexually omnivorous, vain, possessed of more hair than s his natural right. He is British and Jewish and a widower. But when was Haffner ever really married? Or Jewish? When was he ever attached? here are so many stories of Haffner- but this, the most secret, is the greatest of them all. n a spa town snug in the Alps, at the end of the twentieth century, the 78-year-old Haffner is seeking a cure, redress, more women; and ignoring the will of his wife. e is there to claim her inheritance- a villa on the outskirts of a forgotten spa town which somehow survived the confiscations of the invading twentieth century, and has now reverted to her family. But Haffner never does what he is told. On his arrival in the town, he has checked into the spa hotel and tried to develop two affairs- a mildly successful affair with a younger woman whose breasts are lavish, and a much less successful affair with an even younger woman, whose breasts are the smallest he has ever known.

Author Biography

Adam Thirlwell was born in 1978. His first novel, Politics, was translated into thirty languages. In 2003, he was chosen as one of Granta's Best British Novelists under forty. He writes a regular column for the Guardian Saturday Review and another for Esquire, and lives in London.