A New York Times Notable Book On the eve of his ninetieth birthday a bachelor decides to give himself a wild night of love with a virgin. As is his habit???he has purchased hundreds of women???he asks a madam for her assistance. The fourteen-year-old girl who is procured for him is enchanting, but exhausted as she is from caring for siblings and her job sewing buttons, she can do little but sleep. Yet with this sleeping beauty at his side, it is he who awakens to a romance he has never known.