Stephen is a headstrong, impetuous, irrepressible romantic unable not to be in love. One of his models is Goethe's tragic hero Werther, but as a young, contemporary New Yorker he's adaptable. He believes there is a literary precedent for all romantic possibilities that justifies his choices. With enthusiasm bordering on fickleness, he turns from Tolstoy, to Stendhal or Balzac. And Stephen's never discouraged: he can withstand rivers of rejection. His affairs, real and tentative, begin when his girl friend leaves him. He makes a romantic stab at a female cab driver, passes an assignation note to an unknown lady at the opera, flirts with an accessible waitress, and then has a tragic with comic overtones affair with his best friend's fiancée. --From publisher's description.

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