"When photographer Paul Rayment loses his leg in a bicycle accident, his solitary life is irrevocably changed. Stubbornly refusing a prosthesis, Paul returns to his bachelor's apartment in Adelaide, uncomfortable with his new dependency on others. He is given to bouts of hopelessness as he looks back on his sixty years of life, but his spirits rise when he finds himself falling in love with Marijana, his practical, down-to-earth Croatian nurse ... As Paul contemplates how to win her heart, he is visited by the mysterious writer Elizabeth Costello, who challenges Paul to take an active role in his own life"--Jacket.