Fiction. In this comic romance, a man with a dark secret unravels a personal mystery. Italian writer Cardo Maraini is a cauldron of contradictions. Plagued by guilt over the drowning of his younger brother, he is strangely terrified by life. When the Norwegian woman he loves becomes pregnant, he plunges into a comically disastrous liaison, fleeing from commitment and responsibility. He tries to escape through writing about his youth, reliving erotic encounters and the political activism of Italy in the 1960s. When he is finally forced to confront his past and his evasions, he learns to face his fear and finds that there are second chances after all.