Summary

The unnamed protagonist/narrator is an American living and working in Sofia, Bulgaria. He is in his mid-to-late twenties, and he teaches literature and creative writing to high school students. In Chapter 1, “Mentor,” one of the narrator’s students asks to meet him for lunch in the city. In narration, the narrator refers to the student only as “G.” (The narrator consistently uses initials when referring to other characters, rather than use actual names.) The narrator and G. meet for lunch at a café in the city, and the narrator believes that G. wishes to talk about his creative writing. G. presents a poem that he previously presented in class. It is a love poem addressed to an unnamed woman. G. says that the pronouns in the poem should actually be male, as G. is homosexual. G. decided to talk to the narrator about...