Growing up in war-torn Hungary, the narrator András Vajda, discovers that the charms of young girls are lost on him, and seeks out the embraces of older women. From his first disastrous encounter with the formidable Fräulein Mozart at a US army camp to his passion for Maya, a married woman, through to his turbulent affair with a reporter’s wife in Canada, he recounts how his amorous adventures with different middle-aged women have taught him about sex, love and the ways of the world.