Peter is a gifted young writer, and Maureen Tarnopol is the woman who wants to be his muse but who instead is his nemesis. Their union is based on fraud and shored up by moral blackmail, but it is so perversely durable that, long after Maureen's death, Peter is still trying - and failing - to write ...

Peter is a gifted young writer, and Maureen Tarnopol is the woman who wants to be his muse but who instead is his nemesis. Their union is based on fraud and shored up by moral blackmail, but it is so perversely durable that, long after Maureen's death, Peter is still trying - and failing - to write his way free of it.