"On his fortieth birthday, celebrated by a solitary meal in Oslo's most exclusive hotel, Dr Knut Holmen, a successful middle-aged ear, nose and throat specialist, decides to go on holiday in the past to take stock of himself and his values. As echoes from his childhood and youth emerge, the edifice of self-satisfied bourgeouis respectability he has painstakingly constructed slowly crumbles. Searching for clues to his malaise as he revists the neighbourhoods he knew as a peasant student in the capital, he finds that, from early on, his life has been dominated by a repressive sexual morality. After a series of dramatic encounters and much self-probing analysis, he acheives a catharsis of sexual guilt and can look forward to a new beginning."--Back cover.