She is not only a romantic but an anarchist, and she knows the ways of men and women very well indeed Anita Brookner Hugo Potts is a successful London playwright enjoying his moment of notoriety. Adored by critics and pursued by women, he s the darling of the literary scene. But his public personae is exactly that a personae and he works exhaustedly day and night to portray the person the public expect him to be. One weekend he attends a party at a country house alongside the most important publishers and writers of the time. It s an opportunity, of course, to meet interesting women. But over the course of the weekend he finds himself scorned by one, and unexpectedly profoundly understood by another, and his values and everything he s held to be important abruptly come into question.