The life of Parthenope - neither siren nor myth - from her birth in 1950 to the present day. Her long existence embodies the full repertoire of human existence: youth's lightheartedness and its demise, classical beauty and its inexorable permutations, pointless and impossible loves, stale flirtations and dizzying passion, nighttime kisses on Capri, flashes of joy and persistent suffering, real and invented fathers, endings and new beginnings.