Sebastiaan earns his living as a piano teacher in his place of residence, Leiden, and also plays as a background pianist in an Amsterdam pizzeria. The fact that he leads two lives is also demonstrated by the fact that he visits prostitutes and peep shows in Amsterdam. He becomes acquainted with Victoria in one of the striptease joints, where she works to support her study at a dance academy. Sebastiaan becomes enchanted by this impulsive, elusive and licentious performer who alternately attracts and repels him, without ever giving herself to him completely. At the same time, he begins a fleeting relationship, which is doomed from the outset, with his sixteen-year-old pupil Rosetta. With her, he devotes his energy to the sonatas of the composer Domenico Scarlatti, whom he admires greatly.

When Rosetta ends their affair, Sebastiaan’s obsession for Victoria takes over. The stream of sms messages, e-mails, and telephone calls with which he bombards her eventually forces her to lodge a complaint for stalking, referring to the article in the Dutch Penal Code.

Besides a pure defence of Sebastiaan’s actions, the novel also presents a sharp picture of the times. Weijts sketches a portrait of a generation that can no longer cope with an unprecedented amount of freedom, a generation for which the differences between art and porn, passion and lust, truth and fiction have no significance whatsoever, and which can only find meaningful engagement in limit-stretching behaviour. In that context, stalking is primarily a metaphor for a libertine generation that, although it seeks love, is only capable of pursuing it in vain. Weijts has articulated this doubt and desperation perfectly in his debut novel.