"When Alex Massolini's brother is killed in Vietnam, Alex drops out of Columbia University and leaves his conservative family behind for Capri. There, he becomes secretary to Rupert Grant, a famous British novelist and poet, who dominates the island like a latter-day Prospero. Alex soon finds himself ensnared in a web of love affairs, friendships, and rivalries within the eccentric community that inhabits the idyllic beauty of the isolated Italian island.".

"Among this group are the selfish, cunning, and brilliant Rupert Grant; his wife, Vera, a charming and sophisticated social manipulator; the elusive Holly and the mysterious Marisa, who act as Grant's research assistants; a young philosophy student from the Sorbonne, Patrice LaRue; and Father Aurelio, an intellectual priest who is desperate for parishioners.".

"The Apprentice Lover traces a young American's enchantment and disenchantment - with his American past, with his new European mentor, and with the various characters on an island famous for its characters. As Alex stumbles upon intrigues and secrets, he tries to balance what others demand of him with his own nascent desires.

His apprenticeship in love, literature, and life unfolds with a combination of Mediterranean clarity, wry humor, wit, and emotional power that only a master of fiction could orchestrate."--BOOK JACKET.