Maxine is shy, perceptive and a virgin. When her grandmother offers her acting classes to help her feel more comfortable with her body, she reluctantly agrees. But it is when she is given the role of a prostitute in Pommerat's play The Reunification of the Two Koreas that she realizes the extent of her anomaly. She has to lose her virginity and get rid of that burden that imprisons, obsesses and isolates her. Her body demands it, so does society.
In her desperate quest, that will take her from the depths of a public swimming pool to a sex school in the Netherlands, beset by the injunctions weighing down on her, Maxine will find answers and, above all, the true nature of her desire.
With this debut-novel full of humor and tenderness, Constance Rutherford offers a prodigious portrayal of her generation and our times.
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