A fabulous gallery of full-blooded, sensual, and moving characters, portrayed in the author’s generous and unique prose style.

Mercedes was only fifteen years old when she fled Spain for France with Iberio, her infant son. Eighteen years later, as the superintendent of a high-end apartment building in Paris, she looks on with love and strictness, sometimes even dread, as her little boy grows into manhood. She doesn't know it yet, but a new life is beginning for her. The distant and aloof Mercedes, with her mysterious beauty, agrees to pose for Ezra Goldweiser, the famous painter on the top floor. Life in this building, where passion, desire, cynicism, jealousy, love, and despair all collide, revolves around Mercedes, who has eyes only for her son. A nuanced portrait of humanity in all its excess.