The story of an imaginative boy who pretends he is the child of a sperm-laden Sicilian tomato upon which his mother accidentally fell.

Set during the second world war, the sentimental education of a sensual adolescent girl, growing out of her childhood in a small, impoverished village in Southern Italy.

A young restorer is commissioned a job at an old villa which belongs to an aging countess.

For personal and humanitarian reasons, Edoardo, a Ligurian sea captain, agrees to run a shipment of arms to Bosnian rebels for a shady Russian in Toulon who calls himself Riffaud. Edoardo's lover Clara wants him to quit the sea and Riffaud's wife warns Edoardo not to trust her husband, but Edoardo takes the job anyway. Sailing up the Adriatic, the crew threatens mutiny when they learn they must dock in a war zone. Once in port, little goes as Riffaud promised, and Edoardo must travel with a translator to the rebels' mountain stronghold to get payment for the crew. The war is all around them as Clara waits at home and the translator begs passage to Italy.

While his girlfriend recovers from a medical procedure, a corrupt lawyer becomes entranced by the grand visions of a mob boss.

Expatriate Henry Miller indulges in a variety of sexual escapades while struggling to establish himself as a serious writer in Paris.