The first section presents Mahon's writings on Irish writers, from Yeats, Wilde, Joyce, MacNeice, and Beckett, to such contemporary figures as Brian Moore, John Montague, Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, and Paul Durcan. The next section gathers some of Mahon's observations on French literature, long a strong interest of his, and includes both major and minor novelists and poets -- Eluard, Bonnefoy, Alain-Fournier, Ciline, Sartre, Camus, and Weil.

Mahon then turns to a diverse group of Alain 18th-century English-language literary figures, such as Raymond Chandler, Ford Madox Ford, Robert Lowell, Malcolm Lowery, Anthony Burgess, J.P Donleavy, Jay McInerney, and Samuel Menashe, and explores their craft and artistic inspirations. The final section presents a series of profiles of persons and places, from Ireland to France, to New York and San Francisco.