"Burgessian" Rome. Like the locations of many of his novels, Rome here takes on a texture that can only exist in Burgess. The plot concerns Mr. John Beard, a hack writer having a hell of a time (so to speak) in the Eternal City. Full of Nabokovian autoparody (a "better" writer visits Mr. Beard and pounds away at some of Burgess's own aesthetics) and some fairly relentless lascivity, "Beard's Roman Women" will be appreciated most by the Burgess-fanatics. --A Customer at Amazon. com.