“Call girls” is a sharp, poisonous nickname for a group of reputable scientists who travel from congress to congress, from symposium to symposium, acting as a kind of “wedding generals.”
The hustle and bustle of everyday life. Small intrigues and petty plots. Vanity, pride, lust—not mortal sins, but miserable human passions.
Who are these people?
Why do they even live?
The novel, which even Kestler called “a tragicomedy with a prologue and an epilogue,” doesn’t give direct answers to that question—though the reader will certainly find them on their own.