Augusta played

the long version

A student at Juilliard, Gus is a promising young flutist as beautiful, serene, and captivating as the music she plays. Into the world she shares with her canary, Tweetie-Pie, enters a cast of wonderfully humorous characters: her husband, Norman Gold, a real luftmensch; Sidney, his father, who may be appointed to the Supreme Court if the political tumblers fall just right; Richard, an absentminded professor and Gus's former lover; Birdie, a nightclub stripper who dreams of making her "interpretative dance" debut; and Mario, a peeping-tom bellboy. While the foul and zany intricacies of this highflying novel provoke raucous laughter, its true gift is to capture the way men and women relate - or fail to relate - to one another.