"Leib Goldkorn, now aged 97, made his celebrated debut almost a quarter of a century ago in The Steinway Quintet."--BOOK JACKET.

"In Ice Fire Water Leib pursues his passion both in romantic locales - Paris, Hollywood, and Rio just before World War II - and with the three most glamorous women of that era. In Ice, Leib rescues the famous skater Sonja Henie from Hitler's clutches and then directs her in a feature for Twentieth Century Fox. In Fire, his paramour is Carmen Miranda, with whom he has a shipboard romance while on the way to Rio.

And in Water he has a South Sea Island intrigue with a famous swimming star of the '40s, whom he saves from the ravages of hungry cannibals. But perhaps the one he loves most is Esther - not the bathing beauty but the heroine of the biblical opera that he has written in order to bring the world's attention to the desperate plight of the Jews."--BOOK JACKET.

"But Leib lives and loves no less in the present.

Following doctor's orders to effect a purgation of his prostate, he seeks joyous relief with three new inamoratas: that same Michiko Kakutani, whom he is convinced is a blond-headed Finnish masseuse; his own wife, Clara, who once allowed him to blow upon the crimson polish she had applied to her toes; and above all Miss Crystal Knight, whom he knows first from the pages of The Hustler Review, and finally, at the Steinway restaurant itself, in the very flesh.

It is there, in a moment of ecstasy and surprise, that the sublimations of Leib's life are at last undone."--BOOK JACKET.