""History follows a trail of sputtering desire, often calling upon the delusions of lovers to generate the sparks. If it weren't for us, the world would suffer from a dismal lack of stories," writes Bruce Benderson in this brutally candid memoir." ""What astonishes and intrigues is Benderson's way of recounting, in the sweetest possible voice, things that are considered shocking," wrote Le Monde. What's so shocking? It's not just Benderson's job translating Celine Dion's saccharine autobiography, which he admits is driving him mad, but his unrequited love for a young Romanian in cheap club-kid platforms with dollar signs in his squinting eyes, whom he meets while on a journalism assignment in Eastern Europe." "Rather than retreat, Benderson embarks on a wildly romantic obsession: he absorbs everything he can about Romanian culture and discovers an uncanny similarity between his own fixation on the Romanian (named Romulus) and the disastrous love affair of Carol II, the last king of Romania. Throughout, Benderson is sustained by codeine pills, a poetic self-awareness, a sense of humor, and an unwavering belief in the perfect romance, even as wild dogs chase him down Romanian streets."--BOOK JACKET.