In contrast with his best friend at school, who cites Strindberg's and Nietzsche's cynical views on women, Jan-Erik Widgren considers himself an idealist who believes that a chaste woman is out there waiting for him. But the adolescent schoolboy's first love proves to be a loose girl he finds stumbling around drunk one night. They become lovers although she has another man in her life--a man she says bullies and torments her. Meanwhile, Jan-Erik is poised to fail at school, thanks to a sadistic schoolmaster--a browbeating Latin teacher whom all the boys call Caligula.
—J. Spurlin