Tells the stories of a fearful adolescent, an angry old woman, a dog's burial, a possessive mother and her son, a businessman's dinner, and a French explorer in Africa
In post-World War II Austria, Gerti, a woman on the verge of a breakdown due to her husband's relentless sexual attentions, wanders away from home one day and is rescued by an ambitious young man who turns out to be much like her husband.
Orlando doubles as first an Elizabethan nobleman and then as a Victorian heroine who undergoes all the transitions of history in this novel that examines sex roles and social mores.