Accept a Premise. A man dies. Ten years later he returns to earth to his beloved country home in France only to discover that his wife has married his cousin and that his scholarly writings, which represent the culmination of his life's work, have disappeared under the most extraordinary of circumstances. During his life, the man, Ivain La Baille, professor of Latin literature and a specialist on Caesar, is fascinated by fame. Now in his death, he must plot his escape from a destiny of obscurity outlined for him in the written script of his life. Annalita Marsigli has written a novel that is at once a mystery and a work of thoughtful, almost excruciating frankness about the vanities and pleasures of life and work.