When Diana Athill met the man she calls Didi, she fell in love instantly and out of love just as fast. Didi's quirks, which at first appeared so charming and sweet, soon revealed a darker side--he was a gambler, a drinker, and a womanizer, impossible to live with but impossible to ignore. explores the years of their friendship; a period that culminated in Didi's suicide (in Athill's apartment). This bravura work "gives a new dimension to honesty, a new comprehension to love."