Una is a sixteen-year-old sexual fantasist. In 1989 she is a kept woman in Paris who's romantic ideas about the lifestyle of a mistress to an ageing record producer don't quite live up to the reality. She searches for an affair that corresponds to her dreams, but finds herself flitting from one romantic infatuation to another.
From her borrowed studio in Pigalle she explores a bohemian Paris full of unpredictable characters: her Caribbean neighbour Henri; her friends Ines the stripper and Marcus, who help her scrape an existence. La Dolce Vita is hot on her heels, from the pretentious prince who woos her to the transvestite prostitute who chases her.
As Una drifts through a year in her life, she is carried from Paris to a wintry Prague on the verge of revolution, to her rambling family home in rural Italy and to a shocking pre-honeymoon in Brazil. Una's voyage is a rite of passage from girlhood to womanhood. Like most journeys, it involves danger and discovery.
