Vanessa Springora tells how she found herself under the influence of a famous writer. In 1986, she was 13; him, almost 50. She explains how she was the victim of a triple predation: sexual, literary and psychic. But beyond her individual story, she also questions the excesses of an era, and the complacency of an environment blinded by talent and celebrity.

How do you ask a wild, impetuous hairdresser on a date if you're a pathologically timid philosophy student with no social skills?