The Anglo-American community in post war Florence, where elegant streets are still piled with rubble, boasts a bizarre collection of extravagant characters. Artists. writers, aristocrats, alchoholics, a few rich, many poor and some tainted with stories of collaboration, but all indulge in a frenetic round of parties, where gossip, shameless name-dropping and scandalous tales of unsuitable liaisions help to fill lives. This is a novel about two young English people whose year in Florence is a lesson in much more than the Italian language.