The body contains the life story just as much as the brain.”
-- David and Consuela (Epigraph)

Importance: The novel’s epigraph by short story writer Edna O’Brien foreshadows the main conflict of the novel—lust and its consequences—as well as the ultimate fate of both David and Consuela, whose bodies end up letting them down. David is self-conscious of his aging physique, worried that he will be unattractive and unfit compared to his younger lovers, even though he feels, in his mind, that he is still a relatively young, vital man. Consuela, on the other hand, is young and attractive, until her breasts are maimed by cancer and the resultant surgery. She is no longer the Platonic form of beauty that David once perceived, and the scars of that surgery—like David’s sagging skin and wrinkles—are a permanent reminder that the body does indeed contain the life story as much as...