Kitty Crozier wakes up in a hospital bed and finds a stranger looking down at her. He smiles at her and walks away. Months later, in London's Green Park, she encounters him again. They speak to each other for the first time, and on a whim she invites him to visit her the following day. So begins the most important, most demanding, most thrilling relationship of Kitty's life.

Her lover is Virgil Florescu, a dissident poet who swam the Danube to escape Ceausescu's Romania to live in London. As their liaison deepens, they discover more about each other's lives and especially about each other's rather complicated fathers: Kitty's father is drop-dead charming and a stunningly accomplished philanderer, and Virgil's had changed political allegiances to ensure his survival. Rich with characters and, despite its profound theme, often fiendishly funny, Kitty and Virgil is above all the story of two extraordinary families and the interweaving of their histories and secrets.