Catania, the 1930s. Antonio Magnano is the most beautiful young man anyone has ever seen — women swoon at the sight of him, men envy him, and his father parades him through the city like a trophy. But behind the legend of the great seducer lies a secret that, once revealed, will shatter not only Antonio's myth but the rigid conventions of a society obsessed with appearances and virile honour. With razor-sharp irony and an unflinching eye, Brancati exposes provincial Fascism and the hypocrisy of a world that mistakes beauty for virtue, and swagger for substance.